memorandum--that this measure is both harmful, and cruel. On the one
side, hundreds of thousands of hands which assist petty industry in
the provinces will be turned aside, when there is no possibility,
and for a long time there will be none, of replacing them. On the
other side, the cries and moans of such an enormous number of
unfortunates will serve as a reproach to our Government not only in
our own country but also beyond the confines of Russia.

Since the time of Speranski and the like-minded members of the "Jewish
Committee" of 1803 and 1812[1] the leading spheres of St. Petersburg had
had no chance to hear such courageous and truthful words. Vorontzov's
objections implied a crushing criticism of the whole fallacious economic
policy of the Government in branding the petty tradesmen and middlemen
as an injurious element and building thereon a whole system of
anti-Jewish persecutions and cruelties. But St. Petersburg was not
amenable to reason. The only concession wrested from the "Jewish
Committee" consisted in replacing the term "useless" as applied to small
tradesmen by the designation "not engaged in productive labor."

[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 340.]

The cruel project continued to engage the attention of the "Jewish
Committee" for a long time. In April, 1815, the chairman of the
Committee, Kiselev, addressed a circular to the governors-general in
which he pointed out that after the promulgation of the laws concerning
the establishment of Crown schools and the abolition of the
Kahals--laws-which were aimed at "the weakening of the influence of the
Talmud" and the destruction of all institutions "fostering the separate
individuality of the Jews"--the turn had come for carrying into effect,
by means of the proposed classification, the measures directed towards
"the transfer of the Jews to useful labor." Of the regulations tending
to affect the Jews "culturally" the circular emphasizes the prohibition
of Jewish dress to take effect after the lapse of five years.

All the regulations alluded to--Kiselev writes--have been issued and
will be issued separately, _in order to conceal their interrelation
and common aim from the fanaticism, of the Jews_. For this reason
his Imperial Majesty has been graciously pleased to command me to
communicate all the said plans to the Governors-General
_confidentially_.

It would seem, however, that the Russian authorities had grossly
underestimated t