4.-.* 



JEWS. 



thrift and self-denial; and they demand, as 

 their right, to have mind and feeling, ratber 

 than race, regarded MS true criteria of good 

 citi/eiiship and national character. 



Hut it i> in Kiis>iu that the persecutions of 

 the Jews have been of a most violent charac- 

 ter, causing the destruction of families and 

 whole villages. The scenes of these horrors 

 have taken place in a tract of country in Rus- 

 sia extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea, 

 and containing an area equal to that of France 

 and (ireat Britain combined. Ever since the 

 movement was begun against the Jews in Ger- 

 many, tin- apprehension has prevailed that it 

 would extend to Russia, and take a form more 

 adapted to the less civilized state of the coun- 

 try. Early in April rumors of a rising had 

 reached Elizabethgrad, and cause4 the heads 

 nt' the Jewish community, consisting of 10,000 

 of the 30,000 inhabitants, to apply for special 

 protection from the governor. No notice was 

 taken of the application, and on April 27th a 

 fearful outbreak took place. 



A very authentic account* relates that a re- 

 ligious dispute in tacabaret led to a scuffle which 

 grew into a general metie, till the mob obtained 

 possession of the dram-shop and rifled it of its 

 contents. Inflamed by the drink thus obtained, 

 the rioters proceeded to the Jewish quarter, 

 and commenced a systematic destruction of the 

 Jewish shops and warehouses. At first some 

 attempt was made by the Jews to protect their 

 property ; but this only served to increase the 

 violence of the mob, which proceeded to attack 

 the dwellings of the Jews and to wreck the 

 synagogues. " Amid the horrors that ensued 

 a Jew named Zololwenski lost his life, and no 

 fewer than thirty Jewesses were outraged. At 

 one place, two young girls, in dread of viola- 

 tion, threw themselves from the windows. 

 Meanwhile the military had been called out, 

 but only to act at first as spectators and after- 

 ward as active participators. One section of 

 the mob, formed of rioters and soldiers, broke 

 into the dwelling of an old man named Peli- 

 koff, and on his attempting to save his daughter 

 from a fate worse than death, they threw him 

 down from thereof, while twenty soldiers pro- 

 ceeded to work their will on his unfortunate 

 daughter. When seen by the correspondent 

 who narrates this fact, Pelikoff was in a state 

 of hopeless madness, and his daughter com- 

 pletely ruined in mind and body. The whole 

 Jewish quarter was at the mercy of the mob 

 till April 29th. During the two days of the riots, 

 five hundred houses and one hundred shops 

 were destroyed, whole streets being razed to 

 the ground. It may be added that the prop- 

 erty destroyed and stolen was reckoned at 

 2,000,000 rubles." 



The foes of the Jews were encouraged to wid- 

 er and more systematic attacks, by the evidence 

 furnished, through these scenes, of a pent-up 

 anti-Jewish passion. Placards were distrib- 

 uted by professional ringleaders from Great 

 * Correspondence of the London "Times." 



Russia, in which it was declared that the Czar 

 had given his orthodox subjects the property 

 held by the Jews. Hence, after a week's 

 pause, a whole series of riots broke out, com- 

 mencing on May 7th, at Smielo, near C'/er- 

 gass, where thirteen men were killed and 

 twenty wounded, and 1,600 were left without 

 homes. Next day, Sunday, May 8th. a most 

 serious riot broke out at Kiev, once the capi- 

 tal of Russia, and still an important town, con- 

 taining 20,000 Jews in a population of 140,000. 

 Here the riot had been definitely announced 

 for the Sunday, and the Jews sent a deputation 

 to the governor, requesting him to call out his 

 soldiers to prevent disturbance. He bluntly 

 refused, saying that he would not trouble his 

 soldiers for the sake of a pack of Jews. Dur- 

 ing the riot, which broke out on the day fixed, 

 the police and the soldiers again acted the same 

 part they had at Elizabethgrad. The first pro- 

 cedure of the mob had been to storm the dram- 

 shops, and, staving in the brandy-casks, to make 

 themselves drunk with the liquor. During the 

 period of license that followed, four Jews were 

 killed, and twenty-five women and girls were 

 violated, of whom five died in consequence, as 

 was proved at the subsequent trials. At the 

 house of Mordecai Wienarski, the mob, disap- 

 pointed in the search for plunder, caught up his 

 little child, three years old, and brutally threw 

 it out of the window. The child fell dead at 

 the feet of a company of Cossacks who were 

 drawn up outside, yet no attempt was made to 

 arrest the murderers. At last, when several 

 houses were set on fire, the military received 

 orders to make arrests, which they proceeded 

 to execute with much vigor, making 1,500 pris- 

 oners, among whom 150 were Jews, arrested 

 for protecting their lives and properties. No 

 less than 2,000 Jews were left without shelter 

 by the dismantling or the burning of their 

 houses, and for the relief of immediate neces- 

 sities a Kiev committee soon afterward had to 

 disburse the sum of 30,000. 



Next day similar scenes of violence occurred 

 at Browary, in the neighborhood of Kiev, in 

 the province of Czernigow. On the same day 

 still more disgraceful deeds were enacted at 

 Berezowka, in the government of Cherson. 

 Here lust seemed more a principal motive than 

 plunder. While the Jews of the village were 

 at synagogue, a mob attacked the Jewesses 

 and violated many of them, causing the death 

 of three ; others who escaped the worse evil 

 were driven into the river, and nine ultimately 

 died from the effects of the exposure. When 

 the Jews came to the rescue, two of them 

 were killed and a young lad stoned to 

 death. 



On the next day, May 10th, the neighborhood 

 of Kiev was again visited at Konotop and 

 Wassilkov. The attacks had been planned at 

 both places. At the latter place eight lives 

 were lost, seven at an inn kept by a Jew named 

 Rykelman. He was forced to admit the mob 

 to his wine-cellars, and, during his absence in 



