first years of his
activity, Shalom Jacob Abramovich (born in 1836) tried his strength in
various fields. He wrote Hebrew essays on literary criticism (_Mishpat
Shalom_ [1] 1859), adapted books on natural science written in modern
languages (_Toldot ha-teba'_, "Natural History," 1862, ff.), composed a
social _Tendenzroman_ under the title "Fathers and Children" (_Ha-abot
we-ha-banim_, 1868 [2]); but all this left him dissatisfied. Pondering
over the question "For whom do I labor?," he came to the conclusion that
his labors belonged to the people at large, to the down-trodden masses,
instead of being limited to the educated classes who understood the
national tongue. A profound observer of Jewish conditions in the Pale,
he realized that the concrete life of the masses should be portrayed in
their living daily speech, in the Yiddish vernacular, which was treated
with contempt by nearly all the Maskilim of that period.

[Footnote 1: "The Judgment of Shalom," with reference to the author's
first name and with a clever allusion to the Hebrew text of Zech. 8.16.]

[Footnote 2: Written under the influence of Turgenyev's famous novel
which bears the same title. See above, p. 210, n. 1.]

Accordingly, Abramovich began to write in the dialect of the people,
under the assumed pen-name of _Mendele Mokher Sforim_ (Mendele the
Bookseller). Choosing his subjects from the life of the lower classes,
he portrayed the pariahs of Jewish society and their oppressors (_Dos
kleine Menshele_, "A Humble Man"), the life of Jewish beggars and
vagrants (_Fishke der Krummer_, "Fishke the Cripple"), and the immense
cobweb which had been spun around the destitute masses by the
contractors of the meat tax and their accomplices, the alleged
benefactors of the community (_Die Taxe, oder die Bande Stodt Bale
Toyvos_, "The Meat Tax, or the Gang of Town Benefactors"). His trenchant
satire on the "tax" hit the mark, and the author had reason to fear the
ire of those who were hurt to the quick by his literary shafts. He had
to leave the town of Berdychev in which he resided at the time, and
removed to Zhitomir.

Here he wrote in 1873 one of his ripest works, "The Mare, or Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals" (_Die Klache_). In his allegorical narrative he
depicts a homeless mare, the personification of the Jewish masses, which
is pursued by the "bosses of the town" who do not allow her to graze on
the common pasture-lands with the "town cattle," and who set