The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies

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Zangwill Israel. The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies

The King of Schnorrers

CHAPTER I. SHOWING HOW THE WICKED PHILANTHROPIST WAS TURNED INTO A FISH-PORTER

CHAPTER II. SHOWING HOW THE KING REIGNED

CHAPTER III. SHOWING HOW HIS MAJESTY WENT TO THE THEATRE AND WAS WOOED

CHAPTER IV. SHOWING HOW THE ROYAL WEDDING WAS ARRANGED

CHAPTER V. SHOWING HOW THE KING DISSOLVED THE MAHAMAD

CHAPTER VI. SHOWING HOW THE KING ENRICHED THE SYNAGOGUE

The Semi-Sentimental Dragon

An Honest Log-Roller

A Tragi-Comedy of Creeds

The Memory Clearing House

Mated by a Waiter

CHAPTER I. BLACK AND WHITE

CHAPTER II. A DIFFICULT OPENING

CHAPTER III. THE QUEEN COMES INTO PLAY

CHAPTER IV. THE WINNING MOVE

The Principal Boy

I

II

III

IV

V

An Odd Life

Cheating the Gallows

CHAPTER I. A CURIOUS COUPLE

CHAPTER II. A WOMAN'S INSTINCT

CHAPTER III. POLLY RECEIVES A PROPOSAL

CHAPTER IV. THE CRASH

CHAPTER V. FAITH AND UNFAITH

CHAPTER VI. THE DREAM AND THE AWAKENING

CHAPTER VII. BRIEF RÉSUMÉ OF THE CULPRIT'S CONFESSION

Santa Claus. A STORY FOR THE NURSERY

A Rose of the Ghetto

A Double-Barrelled Ghost

Vagaries of a Viscount

The Queen's Triplets, a Nursery Tale for the old

A Successful Operation

Flutter-Duck. A GHETTO GROTESQUE

CHAPTER I. FLUTTER-DUCK IN FEATHER

CHAPTER II. A MIGRATORY BIRD

CHAPTER III. FLIGHT

CHAPTER IV. POOR FLUTTER-DUCK

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There had been a special service of prayer and thanksgiving for the happy restoration of his Majesty's health, and the cantor had interceded tunefully with Providence on behalf of Royal George and "our most amiable Queen, Charlotte." The congregation was large and fashionable – far more so than when only a heavenly sovereign was concerned – and so the courtyard was thronged with a string of Schnorrers (beggars), awaiting the exit of the audience, much as the vestibule of the opera-house is lined by footmen.

They were a motley crew, with tangled beards and long hair that fell in curls, if not the curls of the period; but the gaberdines of the German Ghettoes had been in most cases exchanged for the knee-breeches and many-buttoned jacket of the Londoner. When the clothes one has brought from the Continent wear out, one must needs adopt the attire of one's superiors, or be reduced to buying. Many bore staves, and had their loins girded up with coloured handkerchiefs, as though ready at any moment to return from the Captivity. Their woebegone air was achieved almost entirely by not washing – it owed little to nature, to adventitious aids in the shape of deformities. The merest sprinkling boasted of physical afflictions, and none exposed sores like the lazars of Italy or contortions like the cripples of Constantinople. Such crude methods are eschewed in the fine art of schnorring. A green shade might denote weakness of sight, but the stone-blind man bore no braggart placard – his infirmity was an old established concern well known to the public, and conferring upon the proprietor a definite status in the community. He was no anonymous atom, such as drifts blindly through Christendom, vagrant and apologetic. Rarest of all sights in this pageantry of Jewish pauperdom was the hollow trouser-leg or the empty sleeve, or the wooden limb fulfilling either and pushing out a proclamatory peg.

.....

"Ah! this vay, then!"

And the humorist pointed to the street.

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