, which was far from being
pro-Jewish, published a number of heart-rending facts illustrating the
trials of the outlawed Jews at Moscow. It told of a young talented Jew
who maintained himself and his family by working on a Moscow newspaper
and, not having the right of residence in that city, was wont to save
himself from the night raids of the police by hiding himself, on a
signal of his landlord, in the wardrobe. Many Jews who lived honestly by
the sweat of their brow were cruelly expelled by the police when their
certificates of residence contained even the slightest technical
inaccuracy. By way of illustrating the "religious liberty" of the Jews
in the narrower sense of the word, the paper mentioned the fact that
after the opening of the new synagogue in Moscow, which accommodated
five hundred worshippers, the police ordered the closing of all the
other houses of prayer, to the number of twenty, which had been attended
by some ten thousand people.

The governor of St. Petersburg, Gresser, made a regular
sport of taunting the Jews. One ordinance of his prescribed
that the signs on the stores and workshops belonging to
Jews should indicate not only the family names of their
owners but also their full first names as well as their fathers'
names, exactly as they were spelled in their passports, "with
the end in view of averting possible misunderstandings." The
object of this ordinance was to enable the Christian public
to boycott the Jewish stores and, in addition, to poke fun at
the names of the owners, which, as a rule, were mutilated
in the Russian registers and passports to the point of ridiculousness
by semi-illiterate clerks.

Gresser's ordinance was issued on November 17, 1890, a
few days before the protest meeting in London. As the
Russian Government was at that time assuring Europe that
the Jews were particularly happy in Russia, the ordinance
was not published in the newspapers but nevertheless applied
secretly. The Jewish storekeepers, who realized the malicious
intent of the new edict, tried to minimize the damage resulting
from it by having their names painted in small letters so as
not to catch the eyes of the Russian anti-Semites. Thereupon
Gresser directed the police officials (in March 1891) to see to
it that the Jewish names on the store signs should be indicated
"clearly and in a conspicuous place, in accordance with
the prescribed drawings" and "to report immediately" to
him any attempt to violat