tyranny, this of the Mahamad, an inelastic administration of a cast-iron codex wrought "in good King Charles's golden days," when the colony of Dutch-Spanish exiles was as a camp in enemies' country, in need of military régime; and it co-operated with the attractions of an unhampered "Christian" career in driving many a brilliant family beyond the gates of the Ghetto, and into the pages of Debrett. Athens is always a dangerous rival to Sparta.

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[107]

[108]

[108]

  

"THE PRESIDENT OF THE MAHAMAD."

But the Mahamad itself moved strictly in the grooves of prescription. That legalistic instinct of the Hebrew, which had evolved the most gigantic and minute code of conduct in the world, had beguiled these latter-day Jews into super-adding to it a local legislation that grew into two hundred pages of Portuguese—an intertangled network of Ascamot or regulations, providing for every contingency of Synagogue politics, from the quarrels of members for the best seats down to the dimensions of their graves in the Carreira, from the distribution of "good deeds" among the rich to the distribution of Passover Cakes among the poor. If the wheels and pulleys of the communal life moved "by permission of the Mahamad," the Mahamad moved by permission of the Ascamot.

The Solemn Council was met—"in complete Mahamad." Even the Chief of the Elders was present, by virtue of his privilege, making a sixth; not to count the Chancellor or Secretary, who sat flutteringly fingering the Portuguese Minute Book on the right of the President. He was a little man, an odd medley of pomp and bluster, with a snuff-smeared upper lip, and a nose that had dipped in the wine when it was red. He had a grandiose sense of his own importance, but it was a pride that had its roots in humility, for he felt himself great because he was the servant of greatness. He lived "by permission of the Mahamad." As an official he was theoretically inaccessible. If you approached him on a matter he would put out his palms deprecatingly and pant, "I must consult the Mahamad." It was said of him that he had once been asked the time, and that he had automatically panted, "I must consult the Mahamad." This consultation was the merest form; in practice the Secretary had more influence than the Chief Rabbi, who was not allowed to recommend an applicant for[109] charity, for the quaint reason that the respect entertained for him might 

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