ndarmerie served as the executive organ of
the political police, or of the so-called Third Section, dreaded
throughout Russia on account of its relentless cruelty in suppressing
the slightest manifestation of liberal thought. The Third Section was
nominally abolished in 1880.]

However, their apprehensions were unfounded. Apart from the incident
referred to, there were no cases of open rebellion against the
authorities. As a matter of fact, even in Old-Constantine, the "mutiny"
was of a nature little calculated to be dealt with by a court-martial.
According to the local tradition, the Jewish residents, Hasidim almost
to a man, were so profoundly stirred by the imperial ukase that they
assembled in the synagogues, fasting and praying, and finally resolved
to adopt "energetic" measures. A petition reciting their grievances
against the Tzar was framed in due form and placed in the hands of a
member of the community who had just died, with the request that the
deceased present it to the Almighty, the God of Israel. This childlike
appeal to the heavenly King from the action of an earthly sovereign and
the emotional scenes accompanying it were interpreted by the Russian
authorities as "mutiny." Under the patriarchal conditions of Jewish life
prevailing at that time a political protest was a matter of
impossibility. The only medium through which the Jews could give vent to
their burning national sorrow was a religious demonstration within the
walls of the synagogue.

3. MILITARY MARTYRDOM

The ways and means by which the provisions of the military statute were
carried into effect during the reign of Nicholas I. we do not learn from
official documents, which seem to have drawn a veil over this dismal
strip of the past. Our information is derived from sources far more
communicative and nearer to truth--the traditions current among the
people. Owing to the fact that every Jewish community, at the mutual
responsibility of all its members, was compelled by law to supply a
definite number of recruits, and that no one was willing to become a
soldier of his own volition, the Kahal administration and the recruiting
"trustees," who had to answer to the authorities for any shortage in
recruits, were practically forced to become a sort of police agents,
whose function it was to "capture" the necessary quota of recruits.
Prior to every military conscription, the victims marked for prey, the
young men and boys of the burgher class, [1]