maiming to evade a military service
which was in effect penal servitude. "The most tender-hearted mother,"
to quote a contemporary, "would place the finger of her beloved son
under the kitchen knife of a home-bred quack surgeon."

This evasion resulted in immense shortages which pressed heavily upon
the Jewish communities, since the latter were held collectively
responsible for supplying the full quota of recruits. The reports about
the unsatisfactory conscription results among the Jews filled the
Government in St. Petersburg with rage. The persistent reluctance of
human beings to be parted almost for life from those near and dear to
them, or to see their little ones carried off to an early grave or to
the baptismal font, was regarded as a manifestation of criminal
self-will. Accordingly, the former measures of "cutting short" and
"curbing" this self-will were improved upon by new ones. In December,
1850, the Tzar gave orders that for every missing Jewish recruit in a
given community three men of the minimum age of twenty from the same
community and one more recruit for every two thousand rubles ($1000) of
tax arrears should be impressed into service. A year later the following
atrocious measures were issued for the purpose "of cutting short the
concealment of Jews from military service": the fugitives were to be
captured, flogged, and drafted into the army over and above the required
quota of recruits. The communities in which they were hidden were to be
fined. The relatives of a recruit who failed to present himself in
proper time were to be taken in his stead, even if these relatives
happened to be heads of families. The official representatives of the
communities were equally liable to being sent into the army if found
convicted of any inaccuracy in carrying out the conscription.

A reign of terror followed in the Jewish communities upon the
promulgation of these laws. The Kahal elders--it will be remembered that
they continued to exist after the abrogation of the Kahals, acting as
the fiscal agents of the Government [1]--now faced a terrible
alternative: to become, in the words of a contemporary, "either
murderers of martyrs," i.e., either to capture and send into the army
any youth or boy, without discrimination, or themselves to don the gray
uniform and be impressed into military services as "penal" recruits. In
consequence, a fiendish hunt after human beings was set afoot in the
Pale of Settlement. Adults were