ter into a discussion of "the still unsolved question as to the use of
Christian blood by the Jews," but they "unhesitatingly recognized the
existence of the crime itself," which had been perpetrated at
Saratov--this in spite of the fact that the only ground on which the
crime was ascribed to alleged fanatical practices and laid at the door
of the Jews were the traces of circumcision on the dead bodies. Ignoring
this inner contradiction and setting aside the weighty objections of the
liberal Minister of Justice Zamyatin, the Council of State brought in a
verdict of guilty against the impeached Jews, the soldier Shlieferman
and the two Yushkevichers, senior and junior, sentencing them to penal
servitude.

The sentence was confirmed by Alexander II. in May, 1860. The
representatives of the St. Petersburg community, Baron Joseph Guenzburg
and others, petitioned the Tzar to postpone the verdict until the
scholarly commission of experts should have rendered its decision with
regard to the compatibility of ritual murder with the teachings of
Judaism. But the president of the Council of State, Count Orlov,
presented the matter to the Tzar in a different light, asserting that
all that the Jews intended by their petition was "to keep off for an
indefinite period the decision on a case in which their coreligionists
are involved." He, therefore, insisted on the immediate execution of the
sentence, and the Tzar yielded.

After eight long years of incarceration, in the course of which two of
the impeached Jews committed suicide, the principal "perpetrators" were
found to be physical wrecks and no longer able to discharge their penal
servitude. The innocent sufferer, old Yushkevicher, languished in prison
for seven more years, and was finally liberated in 1867 by order of
Alexander II., who had been petitioned by Adolph Cremieux, the president
of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, to pardon the unhappy man. In
this way the heritage of the dark past protruded into the increasing
brightness of the new Russia, which in the beginning of the sixties was
passing through the era of "Great Reforms."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ERA OF REFORMS UNDER ALEXANDER II.

1. THE ABOLITION OF JUVENILE CONSCRIPTION

When after the Crimean War, which had exposed the rottenness of the old
order of things, a fresh current of air swept through the atmosphere of
Russia, and the liberation of the peasantry and other great reforms were
coming to fruiti