think me wrong in this
assertion, the former Governor General, the Marquis
Paulucci, having in the year 1820 interceded in the
Israelites' behalf, and obtained permission that they
should in future enjoy the privilege of teaching their
children their respective trades. This privilege has,
however, again been taken away from them. In the course
of time most of the operative class thus naturally
became poor, to such a frightful degree that the
community is obliged to furnish them with the
necessaries of life. It may be said that Israelites who
cannot follow the trade of their parents need not become
a burthen on the congregation; an imperial Ukase having
been issued in April 1835 to the effect that the
Israelites in Courland should enjoy the right of
keeping, either by rent or obrok, farms, inns, or
baiting stables; but your Excellency will please to
remember that this privilege was soon recalled. And,
moreover, for some cause the Hebrews were ordered to
quit the frontiers of Courland, as well as all the other
places situated near the sea shores; and to withdraw
fifty wersts into the interior of the country, which
latter decree deprives them of the right to inhabit
nearly one-third of that Gubernium. In the same province
the Israelites are not only prohibited from settling
with their families, but are prevented by the law from
becoming contractors to the Crown and undertaking the
erection of any government building, even though they
might be merchants of the first or second guild. Neither
are they suffered to sell goods by wholesale under their
own firm.

"Your Excellency will give me leave also to advert to
the expulsion of my brethren from the city of Kiew,
where they are at present not allowed to remain even a
single night; from the city of Nicolaiew, in the
Gubernium of Kherson; the city of Swart-opol, in the
Gubernium of Ekat-erinaslow; and all the villages
situated in the Gubernium of Whitebsk, Moghilew,
Tchornigow, and Voltawa, as well as all the other
villages of those Guberniums situated within fifty
wersts along the frontiers.

"If in consequence of the last Ukases the Israelites are
also to be removed from all the towns and villages
situate within fifty wersts of the Austrian and Prussian
frontiers, and must quit every house where the sale of
spirituous liquors is offered to the peasant, the number
of exiles w