(1866.)
Many thousand years ago, when the Jews first started in business, the
chief of their merchants was a venerable and irascible old gentleman
named Jah. The Jews have always been excellent traders, keen to scent
wealth, subtle to track it, unweary to pursue it, strong to seize it,
tenacious to hold it; and the most keen, subtle, untiring, strong,
tenacious of them all, was this Jah. The patriarchs of his people paid
him full measure of the homage which Jews have always eagerly paid to
wealth and power, and all their most important transactions were carried
out through him. In those antique times people lived to a very great
age, and Jah is supposed to have lived so many thousands of years that
one may as well not try to count them. Perhaps it was not one Jah that
existed all this while, but the house of Jah: the family, both for pride
and profit, preserving through successive generations the name of its
founder. Certain books have been treasured by the Jews as containing
exact records of the dealings of this lordly merchant (or house) both
with the Jews themselves and with strangers. Many people in our times,
however, have ventured to doubt the accuracy of these records, arguing
that some of the transactions therein recorded it would have been
impossible to transact, that others must have totally ruined the richest
of merchants, that the accounts often contradict each other, and that
the system of book-keeping generally is quite unworthy of a dealer so
truthful and clear-headed as Jah is affirmed to have been. The records
are so ancient in themselves, and they treat of matters so much more
ancient still, that it is not easy to find other records of any sort
with which to check their accounts. Strangely enough the most recent
researches have impugned the accuracy of the most ancient of these
records; certain leaves of a volume called the “Great Stone Book,”
having been brought forward to contradict the very first folio of the
ledger in which the dealings of Jah have been posted up according to the
Jews. It may be that the first few folios, like the early pages of most
annals, are somewhat mythical; and the present humble compiler (who is
not deep in the affairs of the primaeval world, and who, like the late
lamented Captain Cuttle with his large volume, is utterly knocked up at
any time by four or five lines of the “Great Stone Book”) will prudently
not begin at the beginning, but skip it with great comfort and pleasure,
especially as many and learned men are now earnest students of this
beginning. We will, therefore, if you please, take for granted the facts
that at some time, in some manner, Jah created his wonderful business,
and that early in his career he met with a great misfortune, being
compelled, by the villainy of all those with whom he had dealings to
resort to a wholesale liquidation, which left him so poor, that for some
time he had not a house in the world, and his establishment was reduced
to four male and as many female servants.
He must have pretty well recovered from this severe shock when he
entered into the famous covenant or contract with Abraham and his heirs,
by which he bound himself to deliver over to them at a certain, then
distant, period, the whole of the valuable landed property called
Canaan, on condition that they should appoint him the sole agent for the
management of their affairs. In pursuance of this contract, he conducted
that little business of the flocks and herds for Jacob against one
Laban; and afterwards, when the children of Abraham were grown very
numerous, he managed for them that other little affair, by which they
spoiled the Egyptians of jewels of silver and jewels of gold; and it is
even asserted that he fed and clothed the family for no less than forty
years in a country where the commissariat was a service of extreme
difficulty.
At length the time came when he was to make over to them the Land of
Canaan, for this purpose evicting the several families then in
possession thereof. The whole of the covenanted estate he never did make
over to them, but the Jews freely admit that this was through their own
fault. They held this land as mortgaged to him, he pledging himself not
to foreclose while they dealt with him faithfully and fulfilled all the
conditions of the covenant. They were to pay him ten per cent, per annum
interest, with sundry other charges, to put all their affairs into his
hands, to have no dealings whatsoever with any rival merchants, etc.,
etc. Under this covenant the Jews continued in possession of the fine
little property of Canaan for several hundred years, and they assert
that this same Jah lived and conducted his business throughout the whole
period. But, as I have ventured to suggest, the long existence of the
house of Jah may have been the sum total of the lives of a series of
individual Jahs. The Jews could not have distinguished the one from the
other; for it is a strange fact that Jah himself, they admit, was never
seen. Perhaps he did not affect close contact with Jews. Perhaps he
calculated that his power over them would be increased by mystery; this
is certain, that he kept himself wholly apart from them in his private
office, so that no one was admitted even on business. It is indeed
related that one Moses (the witness to the execution of the covenant)
caught a glimpse of him from behind, but this glimpse could scarcely
have sufficed for identification; and it is said, also, that at certain
periods the chief of the priesthood was admitted to consultation with
him; but although his voice was then heard, he did not appear in
person—only the shadow of him was seen, and everyone will allow that a
shadow is not the best means of identification. And in further support
of my humble suggestion it may be noted that in many and important
respects the later proceedings attributed to Jah differ extremely in
character from the earlier; and this difference cannot be explained as
the common difference between the youth and maturity and senility of one
and the same man, for we are expressly assured that Jah was without
change—by which we are not to understand that either through
thoughtlessness or parsimony he never had small cash in his pocket for
the minor occasions of life; but that he was stubborn in his will,
unalterable in his ideas, persistent in his projects and plans.
The records of his dealings at home with the Jews, and abroad with the
Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Philistines, the Babylonians, the
Persians, the Edomites, and other nations, as kept by the Jews
themselves, are among the strangest accounts of a large general business
which have ever been put down in black on white. And in nothing are they
more strange than in the unsullied candor with which the Jews always
admit and proclaim that it was their fault, and by no means the fault of
Jah, whenever the joint business went badly, and narrate against
themselves the most astonishing series of frauds and falsehoods, showing
how they broke the covenant, and attempted to cheat the other party in
every imaginable way, and, in order to ruin his credit, conspired with
foreign adventurers of the worst character—such as MM. Baal, Ashtaroth,
and Moloch. Jah, who gave many proofs of a violent and jealous temper,
and who was wont to sell up other debtors in the most heartless way,
appears to have been very patient and lenient with these flagitious
Jews. Yet with all his kindness and long-suffering he was again and
again forced to put executions into their houses, and throw themselves
into prison; and at length, before our year One, having, as it would
seem, given up all hope of making them deal honestly with him, he had
put certain strict Romans in possession of the property to enforce his
mortgage and other rights.
And now comes a sudden and wonderful change in the history of this
mysterious Jah. Whether it was the original Jah, who felt himself too
old to conduct the immense business alone, or whether it was some
successor of his, who had not the same self-reliance and imperious will,
one cannot venture to decide; but we all know that it was publicly
announced, and soon came to be extensively believed, that Jah had taken
unto himself two partners, and that the business was thenceforth to be
carried on by a firm, under the style of Father, Son, and Co. It is
commonly thought that history has more of certainty as it becomes more
recent; but unfortunately in the life of Jah, uncertainty grows ten
times more uncertain when we attain the period of this alleged
partnership, for the Jews deny it altogether; and of those who believe
in it not one is able to define its character, or even to state its
possibility in intelligible language. The Jews assert roundly that the
alleged partners are a couple of vile impostors, that Jah still conducts
his world-wide business alone, that he has good reasons (known only to
himself) for delaying the exposure of these pretenders; and that,
however sternly he has been dealing with the Jews for a long time past,
and however little they may seem to have improved so as to deserve
better treatment, he will yet be reconciled to them, and restore them to
possession of their old land, and exalt them above all their rivals and
enemies, and of his own free will and absolute pleasure burn and destroy
every bond of their indebtedness now in his hands. And in support of
these modest expectations they can produce a bundle of documents which
they assert to be his promissory notes, undoubtedly for very large
amounts; but which, being carefully examined, turn out to be all framed
on this model: “I, the above-mentioned A. B.” (an obscure or utterly
unknown Jew, supposed to have lived about three thousand years ago),
“hereby promise in the name of Jah, that the said Jah shall in some
future year unknown, pay unto the house of Israel the following amount,
that is to say, etc.” If we ask, Where is the power of attorney
authorising this dubious A. B. to promise this amount in the name of
Jah? the Jews retort: “If you believe in the partnership, you must
believe in such power, for you have accepted all the obligations of the
old house, and have never refused to discount its paper: if you believe
neither in Jah nor in the partnership, you are a wretch utterly without
faith, a commercial outlaw.” In addition, however, to these remarkable
promissory notes, the Jews rely upon the fact that Jah, in the midst of
his terrible anger, has still preserved some kindness for them. He
threatened many pains and penalties upon them for breach of the
covenant, and many of these threats he has carried out; but the most
cruel and horrific of all he has not had the heart to fulfil: they have
been oppressed and crushed, strangers have come into their landed
property, they have been scattered among all peoples, a proverb and a
by-word of scorn among the nations, their religion has been accursed,
their holy places are defiled, but the crowning woe has been spared them
(Deut. xxviii., 44); never yet has it come to pass that the stranger
should lend to them, and they should not lend to the stranger. There is
yet balm in Gilead, a rose of beauty in Sharon, and a cedar of majesty
on Lebanon; the Jew still lends to the stranger, and does not borrow
from him, except as he “borrowed” from the Egygtian—and the interest on
money lent is still capable, with judicious treatment, of surpassing the
noble standard of “shent per shent.”
And even among the Gentiles there are some who believe that Jah is still
the sole head of the house, and that the pair who are commonly accounted
junior partners are in fact only superior servants, the one a sort of
manager, the other general superintendent and agent, though Jah may
allow them a liberal commission on the profits, as well as a fixed
salary.
—But the commercial world of Europe, in general, professes to believe
that there is a _bona fide_ partnership, and that the three partners
have exactly equal authority and interest in the concern; that, in fact,
there is such thorough identity in every respect that the three may, and
ought to be, for all purposes of business, considered as one. The second
partner, they say, is really the son of Jah; though Jah, with that
eccentricity which has ever abundantly characterised his proceedings,
had this son brought up as a poor Jewish youth, apparently the child of
a carpenter called Joseph, and his wife Mary. Joseph has little or no
influence with the firm, and we scarcely hear of a transaction done
through him, but Mary has made the most profitable use of her old
_liaison_ with Jah, and the majority of those who do business with the
firm seek her good offices, and pay her very liberal commissions. Those
who do not think so highly of her influence, deal with the house chiefly
through the son, and thus it has come to pass that poor Jah is virtually
ousted from his own business. He and the third partner are little more
than sleeping partners, while his mistress and her son manage every
affair of importance.
This state of things seems somewhat unfair to Jah; yet one must own that
there are good reasons for it. Jah was a most haughty and humorous
gentleman, extremely difficult to deal with, liable to sudden fits of
rage, wherein he maltreated friends and foes alike, implacable when once
offended, a desperately sharp shaver in the bargain, a terrible fellow
for going to law. The son was a much more kindly personage, very affable
and pleasant in conversation, willing and eager to do a favor to any
one, liberal in promises even beyond his powers of performance, fond of
strangers, and good to the poor; and his mother, with or without reason,
is credited with a similar character. Moreover, Jah always kept himself
invisible, while the son and mother were possibly seen, during some
years, by a large number of persons; and among those who have never seen
them their portraits are almost as popular as photographs of the Prince
and Princess of Wales.
With the real or pretended establishment of the Firm, a great change
took place in the business of Jah. This business had been chiefly with
the Jews, and even when it extended to foreign transactions, these were
all subordinate to the Jewish trade. But the Firm lost no time in
proclaiming that it would deal with the whole world on equal terms: no
wonder the Jews abhor the alleged partners! And the nature of the
contracts, the principal articles of trade, the mode of keeping the
accounts, the commission and interest charged and allowed, the salaries
of the agents and clerks, the advantages offered to clients, were all
changed too. The head establishment was removed from Jerusalem to Rome,
and branch establishments were gradually opened in nearly all the towns
and villages of Europe, besides many in Asia and Africa, and afterwards
in America and Australia. It is worth noting that in Asia and Africa
(although the firm arose in the former) the business has never been
carried on very successfully; Messrs. Brahma, Vishnu, Seeva, and Co.,
the great houses of Buddha and Mumbo Jumbo, various Parsee firms, and
other opposition houses, having among them almost monopolised the trade.
The novel, distinctive, and most useful article which the Firm engaged
to supply was a bread called _par excellence_ the Bread of Life. The
Prospectus (which was first drafted, apparently in perfect good faith,
by the Son; but which has since been so altered and expanded by
successive agents that we cannot learn what the original, no longer
extant, exactly stated) sets forth that the House of Jah, Son and Co.
has sole possession of the districts yielding the corn whereof this
bread is made, the sole patents of the mills for grinding and ovens for
baking, and that it alone has the secret of the proper process for
kneading. The Firm admits that many other houses have pretended to
supply this invaluable bread, but accuses them all of imposture or
poisonous adulteration. For itself, it commands the genuine supply in
such quantities that it can under take to feed the whole world, and at
so cheap a rate that the poorest will be able to purchase as much as he
needs; and, moreover, as the firm differs essentially from all other
firms in having no object in view save the benefit of its customers, the
partners being already so rich that no profits could add to their
wealth, it will supply the bread for mere love to those who have not
money!
This fair and beautiful prospectus, you will easily believe, brought
vast multitudes eager to deal with the firm, and especially large
multitudes of the poor, ravished with the announcement that love should
be henceforth current coin of the realm; and the business spread
amazingly. But at the very outset a sad mischance occurred. The Son, by
far the best of the partners, was suddenly seized and murdered and
buried by certain agents of the old Jewish business (furious at the
prospect of losing all their rich trade), with the connivance of the
Roman installed as inspector. At least, these wretches thought they had
murdered the poor man, and it is admitted on every side that they buried
him: but the dependants of the Firm have a strange story that he was not
really killed, but arose out of his tomb after lying there for three
days, and slipped away to keep company with his father, the invisible
Jah, in his exceedingly private office; and they assert that he is still
alive along with Jah, mollifying the old man when he gets into one of
his furious passions, pleading for insolvent debtors, and in all things
by act and counsel doing good for all the clients of the house. They,
moreover, assert that the third partner, who as the consoling substitute
for the absent Son is commonly called the Comforter, and who is very
energetic, though mysteriously invisible in his operations, superintends
all the details of the business in every one of the establishments. But
this third partner is so difficult to catch, that, as stated before, the
majority of the customers deal with the venerable mother, as the most
accessible and humane personage belonging to the house.
Despite the death or disappearance of the Son, the firm prospered for a
considerable time. After severe competition, in which neither side
showed itself very scrupulous, the great firm of Jupiter and Co., the
old Greek house, which had been strengthened by the amalgamation of the
wealthiest Roman firms, was utterly beaten from the field, sold up and
extinguished. In the sale of the effects many of the properties in most
demand were bought in by the new firm, which also took many of the
clerks and agents into its employment, and it is even said adopted in
several important respects the mode of carrying on business and the
system of book-keeping. But while the firm was thus conquering its most
formidable competitor, innumerable dissensions were arising between its
own branch establishments; every one accusing every other of dealing on
principles quite hostile to the regulations instituted by the head of
the house, of falsifying the accounts, and of selling an article which
was anything but the genuine unadulterated bread. There were also
interminable quarrels among them as to relative rank and importance.
And whether the wheat, as delivered to the various establishments, was
or was not the genuine article which the firm had contracted to supply,
it was soon discovered that it issued from the licensed shops
adulterated in the most audacious manner. And, although the prospectus
had stated most positively that the bread should be delivered to the
poor customers of the firm without money and without price (and such
seems really to have been the good Son’s intention), it was found, in
fact, that the loaves, when they reached the consumer, were at least as
costly as ever loaves of any kind of bread had been. It mattered little
that the wheat was not reckoned in the price, when agents’,
commissioners’, messengers’ fees, bakers’ charges, and a hundred items,
made the price total so enormous. When, at length, the business was
flourishing all over Europe, it was the most bewildering confusion of
contradictions that, perhaps, was ever known in the commercial world.
For in all the establishments the agents professed and very solemnly
swore that they dealt on principles opposed and infinitely superior to
the old principles of trade; yet their proceedings (save that they
christened old things with new names) were identical with those which
had brought to shameful ruin the most villainous old firms. The
sub-managers, who were specially ordered to remain poor while in the
business, and for obedience were promised the most splendid pensions
when superannuated, all became rich as princes by their exactions from
the clients of the house; the agents, who were especially commanded to
keep the peace, were ever stirring up quarrels and fighting ferociously,
not only with opposition agents but with one another. The accounts,
which were to be regulated by the most honest and simple rules, were
complicated in a lawless system, which no man could understand, and
falsified to incredible amounts, to the loss of the customers, without
being to the gain of the firm. In brief, each establishment was like one
of those Chinese shops where the most beautiful and noble maxims of
justice and generosity are painted in gilt letters outside, while the
most unblushing fraud and extortion are practised inside. When poor
customers complained of these things, they were told that the system was
perfect, that the evils were all from the evil men who conducted the
business! but the good people did not further explain how the perfection
of the system could ever be realised, since it must always be worked by
imperfect men. Complainants thus mildly and vaguely answered were very
fortunate; others, in places where the firm was very powerful, were
answered by imprisonment or false accusations, or by being pelted and
even murdered by mobs. Many who thought the bread badly baked were
themselves thrust into the fire.
Yet so intense is the need of poor men for some bread of life, so
willing are simple men to believe fair promises, that, in spite of the
monstrous injustice and falsehood and cruelty and licentiousness of the
managers and submanagers and agents of the firm, the business continued
to flourish, and all the wealth of Europe flowed into its coffers. And
generations passed ere some persons bethought them to think seriously of
the original Deed of Partnership and the fundamental principles of the
Firm. These documents, which had been carefully confined in certain old
dead languages which few of the customers could read, were translated
into vulgar tongues, which all could read or understand when read, and
everyone began studying them for himself. This thinking of essentials,
which is so rare a thought among mankind, has already produced
remarkable effects, ana promises to produce effects yet more remarkable
in a short time.
Behold a few of the questions which this study of the first documents
has raised.—The Father, whom no one has seen, is there indeed such a
personage? The Son, whom certainly no one has seen for eighteen hundred
years, did he really come to life again after being brutally murdered?
The junior partner, whom no one has ever seen, the Comforter, is he a
comforter made of the wool of a sheep that never was fleeced? The
business, as we see it, merely uses the names, and would be precisely
the same business if these names covered no personages. Do the managers
and submanagers really carry it on for their own profit, using these
high names to give dignity to their rascality, and to make poor people
believe that they have unbounded capital at their back? One is punished
for defamation of character if he denies the existence of the partners,
yet not the very chief of all the managers pretends to have seen any of
the three!
And the vaunted Bread of Life, wherein does it differ from the old
corn-of-Ceres bread, from the baking of the wheat of Mother Hertha?
Chiefly in this, that it creates much more wind on the stomach. It is
not more wholesome, nor more nourishing, and certainly not more cheap:
and it does us little good to be told that it would be if the accredited
agents were honest and supplied it pure, when we are told, at the same
time, that we must get it through these agents. It is indeed affirmed
that, in an utterly unknown region beyond the Black Sea, the genuine
wheat may be seen growing by any one who discovers the place; but, as no
one who ever crossed the sea on a voyage of discovery ever returned, the
assertion rests on the bare word of people who have never seen the
corn-land any more than they have seen the partners of the firm; and
their word is bare indeed, for it has been stripped to shame in a
thousand affairs wherein it could be brought to the test. They tell us
also that we shall all in time cross the Black Sea, and if we have been
good customers shall dwell evermore in that delightful land, with
unlimited supplies of the bread gratis. This may be true, but how do
they know? It may be true that in the sea we shall all get drowned for
ever.
These and similar doubts which, in many minds, have hardened into
positive disbelief, are beginning to affect seriously the trade of the
firm. But its interests are now so inextricably bound up with the
interests of thousands and millions of well-to-do and respectable
people, and on its solvency or apparent solvency depends that of so
large a number of esteemed merchants, that we may expect the most
desperate struggles to postpone its final bankruptcy. In the great Roman
establishment the manager has been supported for many years by
charitable contributions from every one whom he could persuade to give
or lend, and now he wants to borrow much more. The superintendent of the
shops in London is in these days begging for ten hundred thousand pounds
to assist the poor firm in its difficulties.
It seems a good sum of money; but, bless you, it is but a drop in the
sea compared with what the business has already absorbed, and is still
absorbing. Scattered shops in the most distant countries have only been
sustained for many years by alms from customers here. The barbarians
won’t eat the bread, but the bakers sent out must have their salaries. A
million of pounds are being begged here; and people (who would prosecute
a mendicant of halfpence) will give it no doubt! Yet, O worthy manager
of the London Shops, one proved loaf of the real Bread would be
infinitely more valuable, and would infinitely more benefit your firm!
The villainy of the agents was monstrous, generation after generation,
the cost of that which was promised without money and without price was
ruinous for centuries; but not all the villainy and extortion multiplied
a hundredfold could drive away the poor hungry customers while they had
faith in the genuineness of the bread. It was the emptiness and the wind
on the stomach after much eating, which raised the fatal doubts as to
the _bona fides_ of the whole concern. The great English managers had
better ponder this; for at present they grope in the dark delusion that
more and better bakers salaried with alms, and new shops opened with
eleemosynary funds will bring customers to buy their bran cakes as
wheaten loaves. A very dark delusion, indeed! If the pure promised bread
cannot be supplied, no amount of money will keep the business going very
long. Consider what millions on millions of pounds have been subscribed
already, what royal revenues are pouring in still; all meant for
investment in wholesome and nourishing food, but nearly all realised in
hunger and emptiness, heartburn and flatulence. The old Roman shrewdly
calculated that the House of Olympus would prove miserably insolvent if
its affairs were wound up, if it tried honestly to pay back all the
deposits of its customers. As for this more modern firm, one suspects
that, in like case, it would prove so insolvent that it could not pay a
farthing in the pound. For Olympus was a house that dealt largely in
common worldly goods, and of these things really did give a considerable
quantity to its clients for their money; but the new firm professed to
sell things infinitely more valuable, and of these it cannot prove the
delivery of a single parcel during the eighteen hundred years it has
been receiving purchase-money unlimited.
The humble compiler of this rapid and imperfect summary ought, perhaps,
to give his own opinion of the firm and the partners, although he
suffers under the disadvantage of caring very little for the business,
and thinks that far too much time is wasted by both the friends and the
enemies of the house in investigation of every line and figure in its
books. He believes that Jah, the grand Jewish dealer, was a succession
of several distinct personages; and will probably continue to believe
thus until he learns that there was but one Pharaoh King of Egypt, but
one Bourbon King of France, and that the House of Rothschild has always
been one and the same man. He believes that the Son was by no means the
child of the Father, that he was a much better character than the
Father, that he was really and truly murdered, that his prospectus and
business plans were very much more wise and honest and good than the
prospectus as we have it now, and the system as it has actually been
worked. He believes that the Comforter has really had a share in this as
in every other business not wholly bad in the world, that he has never
identified his interests with those of any firm, that specially he never
committed himself to a partnership of unlimited liability with the
Hebrew Jah, that he undoubtedly had extensive dealings with the Son, and
placed implicit confidence in him while a living man, and that he will
continue to deal profitably and bountifully with men long after the firm
has become bankrupt and extinct. He believes that the corn of the true
bread of life is sown and grown, reaped, ground, kneaded, baked and
eaten on this side of the Black Sea. He believes that no firm or company
whatever, with limited or unlimited liability, has the monopoly for the
purveyance of this bread, that no charters can confer such monopoly,
that the bread is only to be got pure by each individual for himself,
and that no two individuals of judgment really like it prepared in
exactly the same fashion, but that unfortunately (as his experience
compels him to believe) the bulk of mankind will always in the future no
less than in the past persist in endeavoring to procure it through great
chartered companies, finally, he believes that the worthy chief baker in
London with his million of money is extremely like the worthy Mrs.
Partington with her mop against the Atlantic.