cars, with the result that they had to
turn back. This rare instance of self-defence was only made possible by
the indulgence of the local police commissioner, or _Ispravnik_, who,
for a large consideration, blinked at the endeavor of the Jews to defend
themselves against the rioters. In other places, similar attempts at
self-defence were frustrated by the police; occasionally they made
things worse. Such was the case in the town of Konotop, in the
government of Chernigov, where, as a result of the self-defence of the
Jews, the mob passed from plunder to murder. In the villages the
ignorant peasants scrupulously discharged their "pogrom duty," in the
conviction that it had been imposed upon them by the Tzar. In one
village in the government of Chernigov, the following characteristic
episode took place. The peasants of the village had assembled for their
work of destruction. When the rural chief, or Elder, [1] called upon the
peasants to disperse, the latter demanded a written guarantee that they
would not be held to account for their failure to comply with the
imperial "orders" to beat the Jews. This guarantee was given to them.
However, the sceptical rustics were not yet convinced, and, to make
assurance doubly sure, destroyed six Jewish houses. In various villages
the priests found it exceedingly difficult to convince the peasants that
no "order" had been issued to attack the Jews.

[Footnote 1: The president of the village assembly.]

The series of spring pogroms was capped by a three days' riot in the
capital of the South, in Odessa (May 3-5), which harbored a Jewish
population of 100,000. In view of the immense riff-raff, which is
generally found in a port of entry of this size, the excesses of the mob
might have assumed terrifying dimensions, had not the authorities
remembered that the task entrusted to them was not exactly that of
forming an honorary escort for the rioters, as had actually been the
case in Kiev. The police and military forces of Odessa attacked the
rioting hordes which had spread all over the city, and, in most cases,
succeeded in driving them off. The Jewish self-defence, organized and
led by Jewish students of the University of Odessa, managed in a
number of cases to beat off the bloodthirsty crowds from the gates of
Jewish homes. However, when the police began to make arrests among the
street mob, they drew no line between the defenders and the assailants,
with the result that among the eight