lways born blind," also to mix it with the flour in
preparing the unleavened bread for Passover.]

It may be added that Terentyeva did not make these statements at one
time, but at different intervals, inventing fresh details at each new
examination and often getting muddled in her story. The implicated
servant-girls at first denied their share in the crime, but, yielding to
external pressure--like Terentyeva, they, too, were sent for frequent
"admonition" to a local priest, called Tarashkevich, a ferocious
anti-Semite--they were gradually led to endorse the depositions of the
principal material witness.

On the strength of these indictments Strakhov placed the implicated Jews
under arrest, at first two highly esteemed ladies, Slava Berlin and
Hannah Zetlin, later on their husbands and relatives, and finally a
number of other Jewish residents of Velizh. In all forty-two people were
seized, put in chains, and thrown into jail. The prisoners were examined
"with a vengeance"; they were subjected to the old-fashioned judicial
procedure which approached closely the methods of medieval torture. The
prisoners denied their guilt with indignation, and, when confronted with
Terentyeva, denounced her vehemently as a liar. The excruciating
cross-examinations brought some of the prisoners to the verge of
madness. But as far as Strakhov was concerned, the hysterical fits of
the women, the angry speeches of the men, the remarks of some of the
accused, such as: "I shall tell everything, but only to the Tzar,"
served in his eyes as evidence of the Jews' guilt. In his reports he
assured his superior, Khovanski, that he had got on the track of a
monstrous crime perpetrated by a whole Kahal, with the assistance of
several Christian women who had been led astray by the Jews.

In communicating his findings to St. Petersburg, the White Russian
governor-general presented the case as a crime committed on religious
grounds. In reply he received the fatal resolution of Emperor Nicholas,
dated August 16, 1828, to the following effect:

Whereas the above occurrence demonstrates that the Zhyds[1] make
wicked use of the religious tolerance accorded to them, therefore,
as a warning and as an example to others, let the Jewish schools
(the synagogues) of Velizh be sealed up until farther orders, and
let services be forbidden, whether in them or near them.

[Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p, 320, n. 2.]

The imperial resolution was couched i