What a task we had to get those bags! We used eight million, and we had to search all Europe for them. When the floods rose again we anxiously watched the excavation ditch protected by these walls of rock and sand bags.

We had a score of great pumps ready to draw out the water should it rush in, but so well had our sudds been constructed that two pumps were as many as we needed.

rock bed.

"When we finally got to work in earnest in the bed of the river, we found the task was a more formidable one than we had imagined. The rock in many places was such as no engineer would think of building a dam upon. It was rotten rock that crumbled into sand under Rotten the pick. We worked down yard after yard looking for solid rock, and in some places we had to go forty feet below the bed of the river to find it. This enormous excavation, of course, greatly increased the cost of the work. When I saw that we would practically have to excavate a deep ditch through the river bed to get to solid rock, I told Lord Cromer I did not know how much it would cost, but it would be done. Lord Cromer said, 'Go ahead!'"

The work was carried on night and day through the winter and spring before the flood came rushing down the valley. An army of native labor was thrown into the ditch. At one time 13,000 men were at work on the As- Number of souan dam. Despite the unexpected engi-ployed.

men em.

Yearly

revenue.

neering difficulties, the work has actually been completed a year ahead of time.

If private companies could go into Egypt, build great dams and irrigation works, and receive the revenue that they would earn, all the Morgans and Carnegies and Rothschilds would be rushing off to Egypt to build dams; for a dam in Egypt is a bigger money-maker than an Atlantic steamship line, or a steel works, or a beef combine. Lord Cromer roughly estimates that the dam at Assouan, which has cost about £2,500,000, will increase the agricultural earning power of Egypt by £2,600,000 every year. That is, the Assouan dam, High Nile or Low Nile, will pay for its entire construction every year. Lord Cromer estimates that the actual increase in the government revenue, because of an irrigation of an added 1,600,000 acres of land, will be £380,000; so that the Assouan dam will not only pay twice over the annuity of £160,000, but it will give a surplus of £2,500,000 a year to the country.

[In 1903, Coronation Durbar at Delhi. First meeting of the new government opened in Pretoria. Hurricane in Society Islands (5,000 lives lost). Panama Canal Treaty signed at Washington (rejected by Colombia, Nov. 3, confirmed by the newly formed republic of Panama, Nov. 18). Protocols between Venezuela and the Powers signed in Wash

liberty de

Russia.

ington. King Edward opened Parliament in state. First cable message received from Hawaii. Alaskan boundary treaty signed. Morocco imperial troops defeated. Blockade of Venezuelan coast raised. Chinese rebels massacre 500 imperial troops at Yang-Wing Pass. Protocol signed between United States and Venezuela for adjustment of claims. Popocatapetl volcano sold to an American syndicate. Work begun on Pennsylvania railroad tunnel in New York. Czar of Russia de- Religious crees religious liberty and local self-govern- creed in ment. First through railroad journey across Asia and Europe from Vladivostok completed. President Castro of Venezuela resigns. Twenty-fifth anniversary of the Coronation of Pope Leo XIII. celebrated at St. Peter's. Mr. Chamberlain returned to England from his tour of the new South African Colonies. President Roosevelt made a speech in Chicago on the Monroe Doctrine and the need of a strong navy to support it. Chamber of Deputies consents to expulsion of religious orders from France. Tornadoes in Arkansas and Alabama. Minnesota, the largest steamship ever built in America, launched at New London, Conn. Massacre of Jews in Kishineff, Russia.]

MASSACRE OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA

Medieval

ism in Russia.

T

(A.D. 1903)

ARNOLD WHITE

HE massacre of sixty-one prosperous Bessarabian Hebrews reminds Christendom that the Jew, with his eternal claim for justice, is still sitting at the gate. The Kishineff butchery differs in no detail from previous demonstrations of nominal Christianity against a race, physically inferior, but intellectually superior; proudly exclusive, but driven to money-lending as a career. Precedents for Kishineff are to be found in every old country. Signs are not wanting that if something practical is not done by the Powers to settle the Jewish question, the Jewish question may yet settle the Powers. Already their power is that of mediæval Rome.

The situation of the Jews in Russia to-day is almost identical with that which they occupied in England 600 years ago.

English statute law formerly provided that no Jew could enjoy a freehold. Seven hundred Jews were slain in London on the plea that a Jew had forced a Christian to pay him two shillings a week as interest on a loan of twenty shillings. Lord James Hereford's Money

Lenders' Act was anticipated in the Thir- . teenth Century by an English law which compelled every Jew lending money on interest to wear a plate on his breast signifying that he was a usurer, or to quit the realm. In 1290 nearly 17,000 Jews were banished from England, and other countries quickly followed her example.

ment of

At the end of the Fifteenth Century several hundred thousands of Jews were banished from Spain, Portugal, and France, Banishbut they were favored in Holland, a country the Jews. which by their aid prospered commercially until the decay of national ideals during the pursuit of material gain reduced her to the fourth rank of nations. The Jews were subsequently allowed to return to the countries from which they were expelled, but it was not until October, 1868, that Spain consented to receive them. In 1650 Cromwell allowed the Jews to return to England, and from that time to the present day Great Britain has experienced the truth of Heine's saying that every country has the Jews it deserves. If England can boast of the best and most enlightened Jewish community in the world it is partly because English freedom and sense of fair play have met with the reward they deserve, and partly because hitherto the Hebrews settled in Great Britain have been too few to raise in a serious form the question that inevitably arises whenever the clever but timid few