We have not yet reached the close of these terrible scenes. As if victims of the plague itself were too few, the despised and hated Jews, who lived near the Christians in the large cities, were accused by superstitious persons of poisoning the water in order to spread the plague and exterminate their enemies. These accusations were all the more readily believed when it was noticed that the Jews abstained from water and were less liable to take the disease than the Christians. It mattered not to their accusers that it was the Jews’ foresight which led them to avoid drinking water and that their greater moderation in living helped to protect them. And yet so many Jews died in Goslar and Vienna that their burial places were insufficient, and in cities like Leipsic and Magdeburg where no Jews resided the plague was as fatal as in other places. The popular clamor, however, increased. City authorities who harbored Jews were urged to adopt most cruel measures. The Jews were placed upon the rack and forced to confess crimes of which they were not guilty, and were banished from cities after their property had been confiscated. And this was not the worst. Every appeal of humanity was stifled by the unchristian and bitter hatred of the people. Only a few escaped with the penalty of exile and loss of property. Very many must have perished by fire. In almost all the Rhine cities and in some others also, not only in Germany but in neighboring countries, they were burned without trial or even examination. In utter despair they submitted to their terrible fate and even anticipated it. Six thousand Jews burned themselves in their own houses; and at Esslingen, Worms, and Speier they assembled in their synagogues and then fired them.