y of the victims of expulsion were people who had lived in
St. Petersburg for many years, and had succeeded in establishing
homes and business places, which could not be liquidated within
twenty-four hours or thereabout.... The hurried expulsions from the
capital resulted in numerous conversions to Christianity.... Amusing
stories circulated all over town concerning Jews who had decided to
join the Christian Church, and had applied for permission to remain
in the capital for one or two weeks--the time required by law for a
preliminary training in the truths of the new faith--but whose
petition was flatly refused because the police believed that a
similar training might also be received within the boundaries of the
Pale of Settlement.

As a matter of fact, fictitious conversions of this kind were but seldom
resorted to in the fight against governmental violence. As a rule, the
evasion of the "law" was effected by less harmful, perhaps, but no less
humiliating and even tragic fictions. Many a Jewish newcomer would bring
with him on his arrival in St. Petersburg an artisan's certificate and
enrol himself as an apprentice of some "full-fledged" Jewish artisan.
But woe betide if the police happened to visit the workshop and fail to
find the fictitious apprentice at work. He was liable to immediate
expulsion, and the owner of the shop was no less exposed to grave risks.
Some Jews, in their eagerness to obtain the right of residence,
registered as man-servants in the employ of Jewish physicians or
lawyers. [1] These would-be servants were frequently summoned to the
police stations and cross-examined as to the character of their
"service." The answers expected from them were something like: "I clean
my master's boots, carry behind him his portfolio to court," etc.
Several prominent Jewish writers lived for many years in St. Petersburg
on this "flunkeyish" basis--among them the talented young poet Simon
Frug, [2] the singer of Jewish sorrow who was fast establishing for
himself a reputation both in Jewish and in Russian literature.

[Footnote 1: Under the Russian law [see p. 166] Jews possessing a
university diploma of the first degree were entitled to employ two
"domestic servants" from among their coreligionists.]

[Footnote 2: See p. 330.]

It can easily be realized how precarious was the position of these men.
Any day their passports might be found ornamented by a red police
notation ordering their