ders of the military or police authorities,
without knowing what to do. As a result of this attitude of the
military, the turbulent mob, which was demolishing the houses and
stores of the Jews before the eyes of the troops, without being
checked by them, was bound to arrive at the conclusion that the
excesses in which it indulged were not an illegal undertaking but
rather a work which had the approval of the Government. Toward
evening the disorders increased in intensity, owing to the arrival
of a large number of peasants from the adjacent villages, who were
anxious to secure part of the Jewish loot. There was no one to check
these crowds; the troops and police were helpless. They had all lost
heart, and were convinced that it was Impossible to suppress the
disorders with the means at hand. At eight o'clock at night a rain
came down accompanied by a cold wind which helped in a large measure
to disperse the crowd. At eleven o'clock fresh troops arrived on the
spot. On the morning of April 17 a new battalion of infantry came,
and from that day on public order was no longer violated in
Yelisavetgrad.

The news of the "victory" so easily won over the Jews of Yelisavetgrad
aroused the dormant pogrom energy in the unenlightened Russian masses.
In the latter part of April riots took place in many villages of the
Yelisavetgrad district and in several towns and townlets in the
adjoining government of Kherson. In the villages, the work of
destruction was limited to the inns kept by Jews--many peasants
believing that they were acting in accordance with imperial orders. In
the towns and townlets, all Jewish houses and stores were demolished and
their goods looted. In the town of Ananyev, in the government of
Kherson, the people were incited by a resident named Lashchenko, who
assured his townsmen that the central Government had given orders to
massacre the Jews because they had murdered the Tzar, and that these
orders were purposely kept back by the local administration. The
instigator was seized by the police, but was wrested from it by the
crowd which thereupon threw itself upon the Jews. The riots resulted in
some two hundred ruined houses and stores in the outskirts of the town,
where the Jewish proletariat was cooped up. The central part of the
town, where the more well-to-do Jews had their residences, was guarded
by the police and by a military detachment, and therefore remained
intact.