Page:Zangwill-King of schnorrers.djvu/120

106 not marry; with it he could be divorced readily. He might, indeed, die without the sanction of the Council of Five, but this was the only great act of his life which was free from its surveillance, and he could certainly not be buried save "by permission of the Mahamad." The Haham himself, the

Sage or Chief Rabbi of the congregation, could not unite his flock in holy wedlock without the "permission of the Mahamad." And this authority was not merely negative and passive, it was likewise positive and active. To be a Yahid—a recognised congregant—one had to submit one's neck to a yoke more galling even than that of the Torah, to say nothing of the payment of Finta, or poll-tax. Woe to