who had been dispatched from St.
Petersburg to take charge of the case, began at once to direct the
inquiry into the channel of a ritual murder case. Needless to say there
were soon found material witnesses from among the ignorant or criminal
class who were under the hypnotic influence of the ritual murder myth. A
private, called Bogdanov, who had been convicted of vagrancy, and an
intoxicated gubernatorial official by the name of Krueger testified that
they were present at the time when the Jews squeezed out the blood from
the bodies of the murdered boys. They also mentioned by name the
principal perpetrators of the murder, the "circumcision expert" in the
local Jewish settlement, a soldier called Shlieferman, and a furrier
named Yankel Yushkevicher, a devout Jew. The incriminated Jews were
thrown into prison, but, despite excruciating cross-examinations, they
and the other defendants indignantly denied not only their complicity in
the murder but also the ritual murder accusation as a whole.

The investigation became more and more involved, drawing into its net a
constantly growing number of persons, until in July, 1854, a special
"Judicial Commission" was appointed by order of Nicholas I. for the
purpose of disclosing not only the particular crime committed at Saratov
but also "of investigating the dogmas of the religious fanaticism of the
Jews." The latter task, being of a theoretic nature, was entrusted, in
1855, to a special commission under the auspices of the Ministry of the
Interior. Among the theologians and Hebraists who were members of that
Commission was also the baptized professor Daniel Chwolson who had
scientifically disproved the ritual legend. In 1856, after a protracted
inquiry of two years, the judicial commission, having failed to discover
evidence against the accused, decided to set them at liberty, but "to
leave them under strong suspicion."

In the meantime, Alexander II. had ascended the throne of the Tzars, and
the dawn of Russian renascence began to disperse the nightmares of the
past era. Yet so deeply ingrained were the old prejudices in many
bureaucratic minds that when the conclusion reached by the judicial
commission was submitted to the Senate the votes were divided. The case
was transferred to the Council of State, and there the high dignitaries
managed to effect a compromise between their medieval prejudices and
their involuntary concessions to the spirit of the age. They refused to
en