ote 1: See Vol. I, p. 394.]

[Footnote 2: Compare Vol. I, p. 396.]

In view of the fact that in several of the provinces acquired from
Poland, cases still occur in which the Jews are falsely accused of
murdering Christian children for the alleged purpose of obtaining
blood, his Imperial Majesty, taking into consideration that similar
accusations have on previous numerous occasions been refuted by
impartial investigations and royal charters, has been graciously
pleased to convey to those at the head of the governments his
Sovereign will: that henceforward the Jews shall not be charged with
murdering Christian children, without any evidence and purely as a
result of the superstitious belief that they are in need of
Christian blood.

One might have thought that this emphatic rescript would suffice to put
a stop to the efforts of ignorant adventurers to resuscitate the bloody
myth. And, for several years, indeed, the sinister agitation kept quiet.
But towards the end of Alexander's reign it came to life again, and gave
rise to the monstrous Velizh case.

In the year 1823, on the first day of the Christian Passover, a boy of
three years, Theodore Yemelyanov, the son of a Russian soldier,
disappeared in the city of Velizh, in the government of Vitebsk. Ten
days later the child's body was found in a swamp beyond the town,
stabbed all over and covered with wounds. The medical examination and
the preliminary investigation were influenced by the popular belief that
the child had been tortured to death by the Jews. This belief was
fostered by two Christian fortune-tellers, a prostitute beggar-woman,
called Mary Terentyeva, and a half-witted old maid, by the name of
Yeremyeyeva, who by way of divination made the parents of the child
believe that its death was due to the Jews. At the judicial inquiry,
Terentyeva implicated two of the most prominent Jews of Velizh, the
merchant Shmerka [1] Berlin, and Yevzik [2] Zetlin, a member of the
local town council.

[Footnote 1: A popular form of the name Shemariah.]

[Footnote 2: The Russian form of _Yozel_, a variant of the name Joseph.]

Protracted investigations failed to substantiate the fabrications of
Terentyeva, and in the autumn of 1884 the Supreme Court of the
government of Vitebsk rendered the following verdict:

To leave the accidental death of the soldier boy to the will of God;
to declare all the Jews, against whom the charge of murder has been