JEWS. 



459 



search of assistance, the drunken rioters cut the 

 throats of his wife and six children. 



By this time the chief towns and villages of 

 Southern Kussia were ablaze with violence and 

 riot. Throughout the whole of the govern- 

 ments of Cherson, Taurida, Ekaterinoslav, Pol- 

 tava, Kiev, Czernigov, and Podolia, the notion 

 spread fast as wild-fire that the Jews and their 

 property had been handed over to the tender 

 mercies of the populace. At Wasilgin, the may- 

 or even read a copy of the supposed ukase to the 

 citizens, and a riot would have ensued had not 

 the village priest done his duty, and declared 

 his belief that no such ukase existed. At 

 Alexandrovsk, on the banks of the Dnieper, 

 the operatives carried out what they thought 

 to be the will of the Czar, on May 13th, ren- 

 dering 300 out of the 400 Jewish families of 

 the place homeless, and destroying property to 

 the amount of 400,000 rubles. As usual, the 

 riots were previously announced, and the ap- 

 peal to the governor to send for additional 

 troops proved fruitless. At Ekaterinoslav, a 

 projected riot was happily prevented by the 

 issue of a proclamation by the local authorities, 

 declaring the Jews to be true subjects of the 

 Czar, and entitled to protection of their prop- 

 erty. At Polonnoze, near Kiev, a disaster was 

 averted by the forethought of the mayor, who 

 changed the market-day to Saturday; and, on 

 the peasants complaining, he read them a les- 

 son on the utility of the Jews as middle-men, 

 and induced them to promise not to molest 

 their Jewish fellow-citizens. 



From Alexandrovsk the instigators paid a 

 visit to the Jewish agricultural colonies in the 

 province of Ekaterinoslav, which have been 

 established for more than forty years. The 

 chief centers Gulaypol, Orjechow, and Ma- 

 rianpol were visited in turn, and, though no 

 violence seems to have been done to the per- 

 sons of the Jews, their farms were almost en- 

 tirely destroyed. At Orjechow, the instigators 

 who led the mob were dressed as police-offi- 

 cers, and produced a document falsely profess- 

 ing to be the proclamation of the Czar. The 

 farming implements were all destroyed, and 

 500 cattle and 10,000 sheep driven off. At 

 Kamichewka, the . Jews adroitly turned the 

 supposed ukase of the Czar into a safeguard. 

 Hearing that the rioters were advancing to at- 

 tack, they brought the keys of their houses to 

 their Christian neighbors, saying that, if the 

 ukase were true, it would be better that their 

 neighbors should have their property than the 

 rioters; anrl, if the ukase proved to be untrue, 

 of course their good neighbors would return 

 the keys. The Christians of the village ac- 

 cordingly repulsed the rioters, and, in a few 

 days, the Jews of Kamichewka were again in 

 possession of their property. 



Up to this time the riots had chiefly arisen 

 among the urban populations, but they now 

 spread into the rural districts, and reached 

 every little village where even a single Jew 

 resided. 



Meantime the sea-port Odessa had likewise 

 been the scene of an anti-Jewish riot. Origi- 

 nally announced for May 13th, it was postponed 

 till Sunday, May 15th, without, however, any 

 precautions being taken by the governor, who 

 had, as usual, been duly warned of the im- 

 pending outbreak. Though only lasting for 

 six hours, the riot resulted in the death of a 

 Jew named Handelmann, and eleven cases of 

 violation are reported, one resulting in death. 

 Here the Jews seem to have been most ener- 

 getic in their resistance. Of the 800 arrests 

 made, 150 were Jews, 26 of whom were after- 

 ward charged with carrying revolvers without 

 a permit. The police estimated the damage 

 done at 1,137,831 rubles, while those more im- 

 mediately concerned raised the sum to 3,000,- 

 000. Similar scenes took place on the same 

 day at Wolvezysk, on the borders, where a riot 

 had been announced for the Sunday. A week 

 afterward the lower orders of Berdyczew rose 

 against the Jews, and, on May 24th, a riotous 

 disturbance occurred at Zmerinka, in Podolia. 



Thus, within a month of the first outbreak, 

 almost every town of importance in Southern 

 Russia had seen such horrors as above de- 

 scribed. Apart from the influence of ringlead- 

 ers, the rioters had no cause to incite them to 

 rapine except the force of contagion and the 

 impression that the Czar had really transferred 

 all Jewish property to his orthodox subjects. 

 If once this impression had been officially re- 

 moved, 'the epidemic would have been checked. 

 In many cases it was distinctly shown that the 

 peasants liked the Jews, and only pillaged be- 

 cause they thought it had been ordered. At 

 Bougaifka, for example, a few days after the 

 peasants had destroyed the property of the 

 Jews, they became contrite, and gave their 

 Jewish neighbors eight hundred rubles as some 

 compensation for the damage they themselves 

 had caused. In the face of such a fact, it is 

 tolerably certain that, if the supposed procla- 

 mation had been energetically and officially 

 denied, the riots might never have reached the 

 extent that they eventually did. The conta- 

 gion spread as far as Saratov in early June, 

 and thence to Astrakhan ; it even reached a 

 town near Tomsk, in Siberia, and caused an 

 anti-Jewish riot there. The only bright spot 

 in all this gloom was the condition of Poland, 

 where Jews and Poles have always lived in 

 amity. This continued until General Ignatieff 

 directed the Governor of Poland to appoint 

 commissions of experts to consider how the 

 Jews should be dealt with, to which fact per- 

 sons on the spot attribute the rise of anti-Jew- 

 ish feeling that culminated in the Warsaw riots. 

 But outside of Poland these outbursts of popu- 

 lar prejudice placed a population of nearly two 

 millions in perpetual dread of their lives and 

 property. At times they dared not remove 

 their clothes night or day, fearing that they 

 might have to flee at any moment. Ever since 

 last April that feeling of fear and insecurity 

 has ruled the lives of all Russian Jews. 



