But it is not alone diamonds you find in these rooms. On the various tables may be seen jewelry of every possible description, and all sorts of goods, from a tooth-pick up. You can buy a watch or a jack-knife, a button-hook or a diamond bracelet. Especially is the variety of curious old jewelry very extensive. You find there rings and brooches set with all sorts of stones, of every period in the world’s history, which makes it the resort of the wealthy collectors of the ancient and curious. Here is a brooch, said to have been worn by Queen Anne, and another by one of the mistresses of Louis XVIII., of France. The seller says it was, and if he happens to be mistaken, what difference does it make so that you believe it? It is just as good to you as though the history was accurate. One should not be particular in such matters, though I saw enough brooches that were once the property of an English Queen to have set up a very large jewelry store, and were they all genuine it explains the high taxes in England, and justifies all the rebellions the country has suffered. But it is all well enough. The goods are actually quaint and beautiful. It is darkly hinted that these Jews have factories where jewelry once worn by royalty is manufactured by the bushel, and I should not wonder thereat. For, you see, a brooch of modern style, worth say fifty pounds, is worth one hundred pounds if it were once Queen Anne’s. “Dose goots, ma tear sir, vat ish anshent, and hef historical associations, are wort any money. At one hundred pounts it ish a bargain.”
As the price doubles because of historical features it pays very nicely to manufacture the old styles, and tarnish the gold, and make antiques. But possibly this is a weak invention of the Gentiles who do not deal in antiques.
THE CONFIDING ISRAELITE.
One would suppose that it would be rather hazardous to carry about so much wealth in a paper. What is to prevent the Jew at the table who has a paper before him containing, say, two hundred diamonds, from secreting one or two? The broker hands a paper to one, and another to another, and divides his time between them, and to take a stone would be as easy as lying.
Possibly it would be hazardous among Gentiles, but not so among these Jews. There is an unwritten code among them which makes the property as safe in their hands as though one diamond were shown at a time. There is absolute honor among them, which was never yet known to be tarnished. It is absolute and perfect.
