r (the Empire) the use of a distinct Jewish
form of dress, beginning with January 1, 1851," though the
governors-general were given the right of permitting aged Jews to wear
out their old garments on the payment of a definite tax. The prohibition
extended to the earlocks, or _peies_, of the men.

A year later, in April, 1851, the Government made a further step in
advance and proceeded to deal with the female attire. "His Imperial
Majesty was graciously pleased to command that Jewish women be forbidden
to shave their heads upon entering into marriage." [1] In October, 1852,
this ukase was supplemented by the regulation that a married Jewess
guilty of shaving her head was liable to a fine of five rubles ($2.50),
and the rabbi abetting the crime was to be prosecuted. Since neither the
Jews nor the Jewesses were willing to submit to imperial orders, the
former from habit, the latter from religious scruples, the provincial
authorities entered upon a regular warfare against these "rebels." Both
the governors-general and the governors subordinate to them displayed
extraordinary enthusiasm in this direction. The officials tracked
with utmost zeal not only the women culprits but also their accomplices
the rabbis who attended the wedding ceremony, even including the barbers
who were called in to shave the heads of the Jewish ladies. Jewish women
were examined at the police stations to find out whether they still wore
their own hair beneath their kerchiefs or wigs. Frequently the struggle
manifested itself in tragic-comic and even repulsive forms. In some
places the police adopted the practice of cutting the _peies_ or
shortening the long coats of the Jews by force.

[Footnote 1: In accordance with orthodox Jewish practice, married women
are not allowed to expose their own hair. Apart from the wearing of a
wig, or _Sheitel_, it was also customary for women to cut or shave their
hair before their wedding and cover their heads with a kerchief.]

The opposition to the authorities was particularly vigorous in the
Kingdom of Poland where the rank and file of Hasidim were ready to
suffer martyrdom for any Jewish custom, however obsolete. The fight was
drawn out for a long time and even reached into the following reign, but
the victory remained with the obstreperous masses. Though at a later
period, as the result of general cultural tendencies, the traditional
Jewish costume made way in certain sections of Jewry for the European
form o