A proverb about London among Polish Jews, 1822.

An almost unending fount of interesting material is the Missionary Journals of Joseph Wolf, which I've quoted many times before (see here, for example, for a bit about how the rabbis of Jerusalem stood for Rabbi Yaakov Emden's granddaughter when she walked into a room).

The protagonists in this exchange areWolf, the missionary, and Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov, disciple of the Vilna Gaon and leading Ashkenazic sage in the Land of Israel at the time (1822).

I admit that it took me a minute to understand this "proverb:" "We Jews in Poland have a proverb; The wicked one draws a Jew after him to London, but as soon as the Jew is arrived in London, the Jew draws the wicked one after him."

I think it means to say that the spiritual environment in London is so bad for Jews that the Jew in London, who was after all lured there by Satan, once there he has fallen so far that he lures the very Satan himself. Have you got a better interpretation?