ABSTRACT
LANCELOT ADDISON, in his entertaining account of the Jews of Barbary \ is at some pains to dispel the belief prevalent at his time that 'the Jews have no beggars.' He attributes this error to the' regular and commendable' methods by which the Jews supplied the needs of their poor, and' much concealed their poverty.' The medieval notion that all Hebrews were rich, possibly owes its present vitality to this same cause. Deep-rooted in the Jewish heart lay the sentiment that poverty had rights as well as disabilities, and the first of those rights demanded that the poor need not appeal for sympathy by exhibiting their sorrows. In this characteristic the] ew was never Oriental, but struck out an original line of his own. Like Coriolanus, he might have exclaimed, against an alleviative or fraternal service bought by exposure and pUblicity;-
No argument in favour of checking pauperism was held to justify the policy of putting the poor to shame. ' Better give no alms at all, than give them in public 1,' and even those who in the middle ages thought that almsgiving under any and all circumstances had a shade of merit, declared that they who gave publicly and with ostentation would never get farther than the outskirts of paradise 2.
