The Tandelmarkt—Old Men and Boys at Rag Fair—Jews in Prague—The Judenstadt—Schools and Synagogues—Remote Antiquity—Ducal Victims—Jewish Bravery—Removal of Boundary Wires.

From the Hradschin, with its imperial associations, living and dead, to an Old Clothes Market, is a change over which you may laugh or lament, according to your mood. If you have seen Rag Fair in London, you can form a weak notion of what I saw in the Tandelmarkt at Prague on my return to the Altstadt from the palatial hill. For, besides the difference of architecture, which heightens the general effect, foreign Jews, whether in consequence of shabbier clothes or dirtier habits, have always a more picturesque appearance than their brethren in England.

What a gabble! accompanied by gesticulations so violent that you would think the traders were coming to blows. Old men bent by age, of venerable aspect and beard patriarchal, stand chaffering as eagerly for cast-off garments as if they had Methuselah's years before them in which to enjoy the proceeds. "It is naught," argues the buyer; and the graybeards whine over their frippery, and turn it about, and display it to the best advantage, and reply in a tone that extorts at last the reluctant coins from the customer's pocket.

Look at the boys! How they ply nimbly hither and thither, picking up stray bargains: adepts already in the craft of their grandsires. Look at their fathers! No whining in their traffic: but hard altercation, in which patient subterfuge proves more than a match for vehemence. Here and there, however, a cunning Czech, by sharp practice with his tongue, and a timely exhibition of his money, succeeds in carrying off a blouse or hosen on his own terms; and the Hebrew, while pouching the coins, sends after him low mutterings, which forebode ill to the next customer.

As you wander among the stalls, and push between the busy groups, noting how much of the merchandise appears utterly worthless, you will find cause enough for laughter and for lamentation.

According to the census of 1850, the number of Jews in Prague is about nine thousand, of whom nearly eight thousand are natives. Besides these, there are many resident in some of the neighbouring villages; but the number is less now than formerly. Daily perambulations of the city with the old, familiar, dingy bag on shoulder, in quest of "clo," and the trade of the Tandelmarkt, are the resources to which most betake themselves.

The place assigned for their residence, known as the Judenstadt (altered of late years to Josefstadt), is a few acres of the Altstadt, lying between the Grosser Ring and the river: by far the most densely populated part of Prague. It is crowded with houses: traversed by narrow streets not remarkable for cleanliness, and has altogether an uninviting aspect. Your sanitary reformer would here find a strong case of overcrowding: two or three families in one room, and a dozen, and, in some instances, more than twenty owners for a single house. The number of faces of men, women, and children at the windows, and the many comers and goers along the devious ways and in and out of the darksome passages, leave you no reason to doubt the fact. And in these miserable tenements dwell some of the chiefest men of the community—men appointed to places of trust and honour, who sit in the old Jewish council-house, and officiate in the synagogue.

But even here the ancient complexion and character are changing. New and commodious houses built in a few places are a standing reproach to the rest of the neighbourhood, and to the partisans of dirt. And while prying about you will hear the voices of children in sundry schools, where the teachers talk and work as if they were in earnest. Nor is spiritual culture neglected, for you will see some four or five synagogues, and a Temple of the Reformed Israelitish God's-worship.

In Prague, the manners and customs of the Jews are said to retain more of their primeval characteristics than in any other place out of Asia; the chief cause being the bitter persecutions to which the race, as everywhere else, were subjected. Some accounts assign their first settlement here to the fabulous ages of history, and make it seventy-two years earlier than that of the Czechs, or in the year 462 of the present era. And the tradition runs, that on the ground now occupied by the Judenstadt, and on part of the Kleinseite, the first buildings were erected.

In the early days the Jews lived in whatever quarter of the city suited them best; but, in consequence of many corrupt practices, Duke Spitignew II. banished them all from Bohemia in 1059. Eight years later, Duke Wratislaw II., moved to pity, granted leave for their return, though not on compassionate conditions. Besides doubling their former amount of yearly tax, they were to pay an annual fine of two hundred silver marks, to purchase twelve houses near the river in the Kleinseite for their residence, and to wear a yellow cloak as a distinguishing garment. Their number was never to exceed one thousand; but in a few years it had grown to five thousand, whereupon the surplus were banished; and, to check smuggling among the remainder, they were removed from the Kleinseite to their present quarters.

The yellow cloak having fallen into disuse, Ferdinand II. revived the regulation with sharp severity in 1561. From the Second Ferdinand (in 1627) the Jews obtained important privileges, in consideration of a yearly gift of forty thousand gulden: liberty to choose their own magistrates and judges, to establish schools, and multiply in numbers without limit. In 1648 they took a valiant part in the defence of Prague against the Swedes, and the banner won by their bravery is still preserved in the old synagogue. In 1745 they were once more banished, but had permission to return the following year. Joseph II. placed them on an equality with other citizens, and allowed them to buy land, and dress as they pleased.

In the good old times, whenever any turbulence occurred in Prague, it was always made the excuse for plundering or persecution of the Jews; and in this particular their history accords with that of their brethren in all other cities of Europe. They did but barely escape in the memorable '48. Their town once had nine gates, which were shut at nightfall; and subsequently, wires stretched across the streets, marked the boundary between Hebrew and Christian: these were removed in the year last mentioned, and have not since been replaced.