more useful than to allow this estate to remain in the country and
to keep it in a position which is bound to arouse in them continual
dissatisfaction and resentment." It need scarcely be added that the
voice of the "queer" admiral found no hearing.

Nor did the Jewish people manage to get a hearing. Stunned by the
uninterrupted succession of blows and moved by the spirit of martyrdom,
Russian Jewry kept its peace during those dismal years. Yet, when the
news of an impending general regulation of the Jewish legal status began
to leak out, a section of Russian Jewry became astir. For to anticipate
a blow is more excruciating than to receive one, and it was quite
natural that an attempt should be made to stay the hand which was lifted
to strike. Towards the end of 1833 the Council of State received, as
part of the material bearing on the Jewish question, two memoranda, one
from the Kahal of Vilna, signed by six elders, and another from Litman
Feigin of Chernigov, well known in administrative circles as merchant
and public contractor.

The Kahal of Vilna declared that the repressive policy, pursued during
the last few years by the "Jewish Committee," had thrown a large part of
the Jewish people "into utmost disorder," and had made the Jews "shiver
and shudder at the thought that a general Jewish statute had been
drafted by the same Committee and had now been submitted to the Council
of State for revision." The petitioners go on to say that, weighed down
by a succession of cruel discriminations affecting not only their rights
but also their mode of discharging military service, the Jews would
succumb to utter despair, did they not repose their hopes in the
benevolence of the Tzar, who, on his recent trip through the Western
provinces, had expressed to the deputies of the Jewish communes his
imperial satisfaction with the loyalty to the throne displayed by the
Jews during the Polish insurrection of 1831. The Kahal of Vilna,
therefore, implored the Council of State "to turn its attention to this
unfortunate and maligned people" and to stop all further persecutions.

A more emphatic note of protest is sounded in the memorandum of Feigin.
By a string of references to the latest Government measures he
demonstrates the fact that "the Jewish people is hunted down, not
because of its moral qualities but because of its faith."

The Jews, faced by the new statute, have lost all hope for a better lot,
inasmuch as the Government