The old nurse was not effusive in her gratitude, but her eyes shone as she thanked them and went away.
“I believe that woman would be faithful to the death,” Lionel said, as the door closed behind her. He felt that it was good to be the possessor of such loyal allegiance.
CHAPTER XIII
A DIFFICULT ALTERNATIVE
The Jews’ Expulsion Bill had been passed through the House of Lords at last, but the Act would not be put into full force until the April of the next year. The fourteen months’ grace was given for charity’s sake, in order that those Jews who came under the ban might have time to settle up their affairs. This was certainly an improvement on the Expulsion of 1290, when the Jews were deprived of all they possessed, and cast adrift in such a manner that many of them succumbed before reaching the other side of the Channel. Nevertheless, Athelstan Moore and his party had taken care to impose certain restrictions, so that the interim would not be entirely a respite. The immigration of aliens from abroad, whether en route for other countries or not, was immediately stopped, no foreign Jew of whatever status being allowed to land. No Jew was allowed to rent or purchase any new property, and the money-lending business was brought to an abrupt standstill. Jewish marriages were forbidden, and all Jews holding civic positions were deprived of office. Besides all this, there were numerous rules and regulations of lesser importance, so that the Jew would find himself hedged in on every side. But there existed a loophole of escape available to all; it was nothing to the Government that it would be accepted only by the few.
This loophole consisted of a certificate of assimilation granted by every local magistrate on certain conditions. Any Jew or Jewess over the age of fifteen was eligible as a candidate, and children could be signed for by their parents. In order to obtain it, certain statements had to be declared on oath in the presence of a commissioner and three witnesses, and once the oath was taken, the penalty for breaking it would be extremely severe. The conditions were embodied in the following form of declaration:
“I ............ hereby declare that I am a Jew (or Jewess) by birth only, and not by religion; that I totally renounce Judaism, and everything connected therewith; that I will mix freely with Gentiles, and do my best to dispel all clannishness and cliquism of race.
“I further undertake to make the Christian Sunday my day of rest, and to celebrate socially the great Christian festivals; also to partake of ordinary Gentile food, and to cease to observe the Jewish dietary laws; to refrain from speaking or reading Hebrew, and from the use of Jewish idioms. I promise to abstain from every Jewish rite, to attend either a Christian, Theistic, or Unitarian place of worship, and to associate myself religiously and socially with either of these three bodies.
(If eligible for marriage.) “I undertake to marry one of Gentile birth only, and to bring up any children of the said union in the faith of their Gentile parent.
(If already married.) “I undertake to teach all my children, both now and in the future, the religion of the Church (Christian, Theistic, or Unitarian) I intend to make my own.
(Signed) .....................”