RITUAL MURDER.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143784, 7 May 1912, Page 3

RITUAL MURDER.

OLD ACCUSATION REVIVED. By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. LONDON, May 6. A remarkable manifesto, protesting against the attempt made in Kioff to revise the charge of ritual murder or blood accusation against .Russian Jews, has been signed by leading theologians, writers, scientists, and politicians, including Russian, French, German, and English signatories. The signatures include those of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lords Rosebery and Cromer, Mr. Balfour, and the High Commissioners and Agents-General of the colonies.

(The charge of ritual murder has been urged against the Jews for hundreds of years. It originated with the case of Hugh of Lincoln, a boy of that city who is alleged to have beep crucified (12136) by the resident Jews in mockery of Christ’s death. It .was also declared that the Jews desired to use the boy’s blood in their paschal celebrations, a belief which, however absurd and illfounded, prevailed all through the middle ages in all parts of Europe, and has persisted in some places down to the present day. In Hungary a young Christian girl was treated, at TiszaEsziar (1883) in the same way as the boy Hugh o| Lincoln. The story was a favourite ballad subject and supplies the framework of Chaucer’s Prioresses Tale. It is a serious reflection on our supposed enlightened age that archbishops and statesmen should have to exert their authority to dispel such an absurd legend. 1