
CONDITIONS AFFECTING EMIGRATION 57% 
of Jewish and christian students.” The result of this was that the 
classes in many classical and technical high schools remained half 
empty, for in the cities where the Jews constituted from 50 to 75 per 
cent. of the population only 10 per cent. of the high-school students 
could be of Jewish faith. Hundreds of Russian Jews go to Germany 
and adjacent countries to attend the higher schools, many making 
great sacrifices to do so. Jews became converted to Mohammedanism, 
thus obtaining full admission to higher educational establishments. 
Thereupon the senate declared that although Jews might be converted 
to Mohammedanism they did not thereby escape the disabilities of Jews. 
As Jews who become christians do escape these disabilities, the deter- 
mination seems to be to drive them to be baptized. 
Since 1889 no Jew in Russia can be admitted to the bar except by 
a special permit of the minister of justice in each case. Russia employs 
an enormous number of government servants, but except in rare cases 
Jews are debarred from such employment. Five per cent. of govern- 
ment physicians and surgeons may be Jews. Private practise of law or 
medicine is almost the only professional work open to Jews, and as a 
result these occupations are so crowded that a living income can scarcely 
be made. 
To work as a farm laborer is not forbidden, but it is not attractive. 
Agricultural laborers receive from 25.8 cents per day in sowing time to 
77 cents in harvest in southern Russia, and from 12.9 cents to 25.8 cents 
in northwestern Russia. Board is not furnished by the employer The 
standard of living can be judged from the fact that the cost of subsist- 
ence is officially estimated at from $23.18 to $25.75 per year—some- 
what more than 6 cents per day—and that “ the regular daily ration of 
an agricultural laborer consists of about four pounds of bread, which is 
sometimes supplemented with a cucumber or a few onions.” In Russia, 
especially outside the pale, the greatest poverty is found in the rural 
districts and the small villages rather than in the cities as in the United 
States. This is probably due to the general extreme poverty of the 
peasantry and to the exorbitant taxation. A typical case is that of a 
man who paid $40 taxes on twelve acres. 
Legal restrictions make the Russian Jews swarm in cities, and so 
overcrowd all occupations open to them that a high standard of living 
is often wholly impossible in Russia. 
GREECE 
Greece furnished the United States with 19,489 immigrants during 
the year ending June 30, 1906, and with 36,580 during the succeeding 
year. Greeks in the United States send to their home country about 
$7,720,000 annually. 
Rural life is of pastoral simplicity and manufacturing is largely of 
the home variety, although some mills exist. The cotton mills at 
Pireus, the port of Athens, run eleven hours per day and the wages 
