m of three
hundred rubles. In default of cash, they attach the property of the
paupers and have it subsequently sold at public auction. In the case of
those who possess nothing that can be taken from them the police insist
on their giving a signed promise not to leave the town. Their passports
are taken from them, so that, not being able to absent themselves from
town to earn a living, they are frequently left to starve. If the
parents are dead or absent, the brothers and sisters of the culprit, and
then his grandfathers and grandmothers are held answerable with their
property.

Thus, a large number of Jewish families were completely ruined, merely
because one of their members had emigrated abroad, or, as was frequently
the case, had surrendered his soul to God in his beloved fatherland
itself, and the relatives had failed to see to it that the dead soul was
stricken from the recruiting lists. Yet, despite all these efforts,
there still remained a considerable number of uncollected
fines--"arrears," as they were officially termed--to the profound regret
of the Russian Jew-baiters, who had to look on while the victims were
slipping unpunished from their hands.

CHAPTER XXVII

RUSSIAN REACTION AND JEWISH EMIGRATION

1. AFTERMATH OF THE POGROM POLICY

In this wise, beginning with the May laws of 1882, the Government
gradually succeeded in monopolizing all anti-Jewish activities by
letting bureaucratic persecutions take the place of street pogroms.
However, in 1883 and 1884, the "street" made again occasional attempts
to compete with the Government. On May 10, 1883, on the eve of Alexander
III.'s coronation, a pogrom took place in the large southern city of
Rostov-on-the-Don. About a hundred Jewish residences and business places
were demolished and plundered. All portable property of the Jews was
looted by the mob, and the rest was destroyed. As was to be expected,
"the efforts of the police and troops were unable to stop the
disorders," and only after completing their day's work the rioters fled,
pursued by lashes and shots from the Cossaks. The Russian censorship
strictly barred all references to the pogroms in the newspapers, for
fear of spoiling the solemnity of the coronation days. The press was
only allowed to hint at "alarming rumors," the effect of which extended
even to the stock exchange of Berlin. Not before a year had passed was
permission given to make public mention of the Rostov events.

There