at our doors might have looked down upon us.

"It was through no fault of mine or hers, nor through any
circumstance over which either of us had any control, that we fell
from our serene estate. On the contrary, it was through a work of
pure mercy, intended for the relief of those of our people who were
groaning under the pitiless despotism of Russian officialism and
superstition, that I fell, as so many thousands of my race have
fallen, into that abyss of nameless misery and degradation that
Russian hands have dug for the innocent in the ghastly solitudes of
Siberia, and, without knowing it, dragged my sweet and loving wife
into it after me.

"It came about in this wise.

"I had a large business connection in Russia, and at a time when all
Europe was ringing with the story of the persecution of the Russian
Jews, I, at the earnest request of a committee of the leading Jews in
London, undertook a mission to St. Petersburg, to bring their
sufferings, if possible, under the direct notice of the Tsar, and to
obtain his consent to a scheme for the payment of a general
indemnity, subscribed to by all the wealthy Jews of the world, which
should secure them against persecution and official tyranny until
they could be gradually and completely removed from Russia.

"I, of course, found myself thwarted at every turn by the heartless
and corrupt officialism that stands between the Russian people and
the man whom they still regard as the vicegerent of God upon earth.

"Upon one pretext and another I was kept from the presence of the
Tsar for weeks, until he left his dominions on a visit to Denmark.

"Meanwhile I travelled about, and used my eyes as well as the
officials would permit me, to see whether the state of things was
really as bad as the accounts that had reached England had made it
out to be.

"I saw enough to convince me that no human words could describe the
awful sufferings of the sons and daughters of Israel in that hateful
land of bondage.

"Neither their lives nor their honour, their homes nor their
property, were safe from the malice and the lust and the rapacity of
the brutal ministers of Russian officialdom.

"I conversed with families from which fathers and mothers, sons and
daughters had been spirited away, either never to return, or to come
back years afterwards broken in health, ruined and dishonoured, to
the poor wrecks of the homes that had once been peaceful, pure, and
happy.

"I saw every inju