The extraordinary belief among the ignorant all over Europe that
the Jews occasionally murder a Christian child and drain the body of blood to use for ritual purposes has this week produced disastrous results in Austria- Anna Hrnza, a Christian girl of nineteen, was found on March 29th in Polna (Bohemia) murdered, her body when discovered being absolutely bloodless. A Jew of bad repute, named Hilsner, was immediately arrested, and upon the evidence, chiefly of the condition of the body, was found guilty and sentenced to death. The Judge, the Public Prosecutor, the jury, and the representatives of the Anti-Semite Press who swarmed to the trial were all of the same opinion, and there seems no doubt that the verdict will greatly intensify the Austrian hatred against Jews. Popular prejudice has hardly any limits, as witness the verdict of a coroner's jury scarcely forty years ago that a man found dead in the Midlands had been " murdered by some Irishman unknown " ; but the continuance of this particular illusion through ages is a very curious fact in the psychology of mobs. The story of Hugh of Lincoln, who was supposed to have been murdered for the same purpose as Anna Hruza, is hundreds of years old. The ritual story is evil nonsense ; but is it possible that a Jew butcher, intent on murder for gain or to conceal a crime, has killed a victim as he would have killed a calf to make Kosher meat? The bloodless condition of the Bohemian victim's body suggests that explanation, and if it is a possible one the Jews should spare no effort to hunt the murderer down.
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