Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/342

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. X. OCT. 25, 1902.

years, though, unfortunately, I cannot give MR. PICKFOED chapter and verse for this. As manors are rapidly being extinguished, and copyholds enfranchised by operation of a recent Act of Parliament, the whole subject will soon possess none but antiquarian im- portance. JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS. Town Hall, Cardiff.

The latest authority on this subject is Mr. Archibald Brown, editor of the seventh edition of John Scriven's 'Treatise on the Law of Copyholds (Lond., 1896). He says (p. 245) :

"It is customary in some manors to render to the lord the best animal of which the tenant dies possessed ; in others, the second best beast ; in others, the only beast, if but one ; or if the tenant has no beast, then a fixed sum in lieu of a heriot ; in others, to render the best beast or good, or a sum certain, at the election of the lord ; and in others, the lord is entitled to the best beast, if the tenant dies possessed of a beast, otherwise the best dead good, or a sum certain."

O. O. H.

TITLE OF BOOK WANTED (9 th S. x. 167, 231). 'An Old Woman of the Sea' was published in the Comkill -Magazine, vol. i. New Series, July, 1883. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

' THE VICAR AND MOSES ' (9 th S. x. 199, 232). There must have been a somewhat varying version circulating in America, due probably to its reprint from memory, and the inven- tion of a verse when the person responsible had clean forgotten the original. My grand- father (born 1790) used to recite the poem, and the verse before the last (the only one entirely new, in my recollection) was as follows :

"Now, Moses, proceed

Not a word can I read " ; But Moses fell flat on the coffin :

Such a funeral, sure,

Was ne'er heard of before, For the mourners all burst out a-laughing.

F. M.

Hartford, Conn.

Does not this relate to Dr. Primrose and his ingenuous son? E. E. STREET.

JEWS AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT (9 th S. x. 229). We have abundant evidence in the Bible, Philo, Josephus, and the Rabbinic writings that the Jews were for generations trained in hostility and contempt towards Gentile nations. But enmity towards the heathen does not seem to have been character- istic of the Hebrew race throughout its history. In the Biblical narrative Abraham always keeps himself distinct from Canaanites and Egyptians, professes to be a stranger

among them, will accept no favour at their hands, will allow no intermarriage between his offspring and theirs ; but the records of his dealings with them are without trace of the implacable enmity towards Gentiles which characterized his descendants in cer- tain periods, and this fact has been regarded as important testimony to the antiquity of the record of patriarchal times that has come down to us (Stanley, ' Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church,' i. 34). David seems to have been wholly free from preju- dice against heathen races, and in no period of Jewish history are the relations between Jew and Gentile so cordial as in his reign. Dr. Pusey ('What is of Faith as to Ever- lasting Punishment?' p. 76) states that in the Targum on the Book of Ruth the Moabitess ancestress of David is congratu- lated that, by becoming a proselyte, she would be saved from Gehenna. When we recall the cruelties practised upon the Jews in Chaldea and Persia the bitter enmity characterizing the Jews of post-exilic times is explicable by our ordinary acquaintance with human nature ; but it had encourage- ment from the conception which was enter- tained by the Jews of their mission in the world. Ezra's severe requirements with re- gard to intercourse with Gentiles were those of a zealous religious reformer. To describe the bigotry of the Rabbis Dr. Edersheim (' Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah ') draws materials from the Talmudic tractate ' Abhodah Zara,' and tells us that in the Rabbinic teaching concerning Gentiles

" the most vile, and even unnatural, crimes were imputed to them. It was not safe to leave cattle in their charge, to allow their women to nurse infants, or their physicians to attend the sick, nor to walk in their company, without taking precau- tions against sudden and unprovoked attacks."

There seems to have been some difference of belief among the Jewish teachers with regard to the fate of Gentiles in the world to come. Deutsch says :

" There is no everlasting damnation according to the Talmud. There is only a temporary punish- ment even for the worst sinners. ' Generations upon generations ' shall last the damnation of idolaters, apostates, and traitors. But there is a space of ' only two fingers' breadth between Hell and Heaven ' ; the sinner has but to repent sincerely and the gates to everlasting bliss will spring open. No human being is excluded from the world to come. Every man, of whatever creed or nation, provided he be of the righteous, shall be admitted into it." Deutsch's ' Literary Remains,' p. 53. But Dr. Edersheim refers to Rabbinic litera- ture as teaching that if the Gentiles rose at all from the dead, it would only be imme- diately again to die ('Life and Times of