This is one of only four extant photographs
of Josiah, who refused steadfastly to be
'photo-ed'
until he was well into his sixties because of a fixed belief
that it would steal away his soul.
In his business dealings he suffered under lifelong anti-Semitic
prejudice, notwithstanding that he wasn't Jewish. However
his protestations as to his Anglo-Saxon ancestry fell upon
deaf ears among those convinced by such an apparently Jewish
surname. In fact his mediaeval forebears had been fishmongers
whose frequent marketing cries of "salmon and trout" had been
first adopted, and then later corrupted, as a patronymic epithet
by their contemporaries. Thus, the Domesday Book contains
the entry: '
Jenwald Salemane-Troutte holds land from Geoffroi
de Caen ...' . Josiah had these details printed in a pamphlet
which he handed to new acquaintances along with a cigar and a
putty catalogue, but still he could not
gain admittance to White's Club. Those inside raised their
glasses in jeering toasts of derision, hurled ribald remarks
through the windows and told him to seek the company of his
'sheeny friends like Disraeli'. Josiah was left to
fume and expectorate on the pavement.
Increasingly bitter and vicious he sought refuge in the manufacture
of miniature cigar boxes, none of which was over an inch in
length, and to which pursuit he devoted almost eighteen hours
a day for over thirty years. Eventually he died.