Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 June 1903 — "THE BLOOD ACCUSATION." [ARTICLE]

"THE BLOOD ACCUSATION."

It Was This Ancient Chars* That Caased the Klshlaaf Bfassacra. William E. Curtis in a Washington ■pecial to the Chicago Record-Herald Bays: The recent massacres of Jews in Russia, according to newspaper reports were provoked by what has come to be known as the ’’blood accusation.” It is charged that the Jewish rabbis killed a Christian child for its blood, to be used in the unleavened bread of tha passover. The origin of the charge is supposed to bo based upon the notion that as the Jews ceased to make animal sacrifice* after the destruction of the temple, they would endeavor to find a substitute in a Christian, and sometimes the idea is put forth that, after sacrificing a Christian child, ita blood is used for mixing the unleavened bread. This accusation has been formally made hundreds of times, resulting in riots, criminal trials and several massacres, and although distinguished rabbis have publicly and solemnly sworn that human blood is never used in the Jewish ritual, and many popes, emperors and distinguished Christian scholars have expressed their belief in these statements and have condemned the authors of the accusation, it continues to be reiterated in eastern Europe, and even in- this, the twentieth century. There is a similar superstition among ignorant Chinese who have been taught to believe that the Christian missionaries kill little children and boil their bodiee in order to extract oil for medicinal purposes. Several riots have occurred in China on this pretext. The anti Christian riots in 1805 were started by an imprudent missionary, who took a little child away from a mother, who was beating it, and carried it to his home. The mother started the story that the missionary had stolen the child for the purpose above described and called upon the neighbors to assist in its rescue. Out of this grew a riot in which a church and several houses were burned and several people killed, and the trouble spread all over the province. The old women gossips of China used to represent—and probably do so still—that the Protestants sent their oil of children to Queen Victoria and that the Catholics sent theirs to the Pope.