CHAPTER X.

1858.

THE CASE OF THE ABDUCTION OF EDGAR MORTARA--STRANGE THEORY ABOUT BAPTISM--SIR MOSES INTERESTS HIMSELF IN THE MATTER--ACTION OF THE EVANGELICAL SOCIETY--DISCOURAGING OPINIONS.

Lady Montefiore was still very unwell, and Sir Moses himself was so ill at Dover that he could not leave his couch in the morning after his arrival; but there was no time for him now to allow himself to be treated like an invalid or seek a few weeks' rest.

An important event which for the last five months agitated the minds of Christians as well as Jews all over Europe and America seriously called for immediate and energetic action, and he considered it his duty to rouse himself, and step into the breach.

I refer to the case of the abduction of the child Edgar Mortara from the house of his parents at Bologna.

The first official information of this had been received by means of a letter from the President of the Council of the Israelite community of Turin, addressed to Sir Moses as President of the Board of Deputies. This letter was accompanied by a memorial from twenty-one Sardinian congregations, adverting briefly to the facts of this distressing case, detailing the measures they had adopted in reference thereto, and earnestly appealing to the Board of Deputies for its immediate co-operation.

The full details of the case are given in a memorial addressed to the Pontifical Government on behalf of the Mortara family, of which I give a short abstract.

"On the 24th of June 1858, in Bologna, the boy Edgar Mortara, under seven years of age, was snatched away from his Jewish parents under pretext of having been secretly baptised. The distressed father repeatedly but vainly applied to the authorities for an explanation of the circumstances which had led to the abduction of his son. It was only after several weeks that he was able in an indirect way to learn that Anna Morisi, a former servant in his house, had, many months previously, told another servant girl that, at the instigation of a certain Lepori, a druggist, she had baptised the child Edgar when no one was present, and when he was about one year old and dangerously