Seeing that there was no protection offered them by the authorities,

some Jews organised themselves during the night of Sunday, and on the

“sport” being renewed at eight on Monday morning, they gathered, to the

number of 150, at the New Bazaar, and easily drove away one or two of

the gangs, one shot only having been fired, which inflicted a slight

wound upon a rioter. Instantly the police and military were on the

scene; the Jews were dispersed, and their leaders arrested and lodged in

the prison.

The deeds of Sunday were more than surpassed, in character and in

number, on the second day. Over thirty more men, women, and children

were butchered; some of the unfortunate victims being mutilated in a

manner more barbarous than anything recorded against the customs of

African savages. Then, at the hour of seven on Monday evening, the city

was declared in a state of siege, and the military cleared the centre

of the town of the murderous bands in a few moments. But only to drive

them to the Bender Rogatka, Skulanska Rogatka, and other districts and

suburbs, where they sought out the women and girls who were concealed in

lofts and in other hiding-places the previous day.

It is not possible to describe the outrages perpetrated during this

night. Women and girls who went through it all told me their stories in

the house of the Rabbi and elsewhere, and it was impossible to doubt the

statements which, in depicting the infamies resorted to by “Christian”

men, recorded their own sufferings and dishonour.

One statement must, however, be put on record. A number of women and

girls, some twenty in all, were discovered concealed in a loft at No. 11

Nicolaievskai Street. For four hours the moral pupils of the

_Bessarabetz_, and of the religious and other colleges of Kishineff,

held their victims in this dark place; several of these being girls

under seventeen. A married woman, who succeeded, after being violated by

six ruffians, in breaking away from her captors, ran to the nearest

police station, and implored an officer to rescue the women, including

her daughter, Simme, aged sixteen. She was driven from the station and

told that “the Jews are only getting what they deserve.” The woman’s

name is Chane Zeytchik, and the gallant officer in question is one

Maretzky.

There were many exceptions, however, among the police; the dictates of

decent humanity asserting themselves where the connivance of their chief

had outraged their sense of moral manhood. Among these was officer

Sloutschevsky, of one of the Bender Rogatka streets, who with twelve men

drove a mob of seventy out of his district. Several artillery officers

off duty also helped to save families and women. These instances of

Samaritan kindness were gratefully mentioned to me by both men and women

who had witnessed such acts. Among the comparatively few Christians who

were conspicuous in this humane service were the citizens Dorianov,

Demtchenks, Dr. Doroschevsky, Dr. Wolsky, the pope Laschkov, and M.

Georgior. Many Russian women also saved the girls of their Jewish

neighbours by giving them shelter in their homes.

The mobs were composed mainly of Moldavian and Russian workingmen; the

former being five-sevenths of the whole. The Albanian contingent has

already been referred to. A few Macedonian refugees, and some

Bulgarians, were also among the gangs. All the accounts given to me

agreed in one particular--that the worst crimes were the work of the

Moldavians. In the murders inside the carpenter’s shed in the Skulanska

Rogatka suburb, all the assassins were Moldavians resident in the very

district. The sister-in-law of little Feya Wouller[8] told me that the

Moldavian father and son who led the mob in this work, and in the

murder of her husband, who tried to save his little sister, were walking

about free during my stay in Kishineff, having been released from prison

after a few days’ detention.

A brace of other assassins, a car-driver and his son, who were concerned

in no less than four murders, were pointed out to me in the streets!

One feature of the massacres is most significant, and is not mentioned

by M. de Plehve in his official account, namely: All the Jews who were

killed, with one exception, were workingmen, regular or casual;

carpenters, masons, smiths, clerks, and a few very poor jobbing dealers.

The exception was one Galantor, a cattle dealer, who was known to have

fifteen thousand roubles in his possession. He was assassinated and

robbed by the driver and his son alluded to above.

The women and girls who suffered were the wives and daughters of Jewish

artisans. Those females who were killed were also, like the male

victims, of the same class. A few young ladies of richer families

suffered too, but their names, for obvious reasons, were not made known

to their families. No rich Jews were killed or wounded.

The leaders of the gangs, in almost every instance, were Seminarists,

disguised as workingmen. There were two students from Odessa, sons of

wealthy Kishineff families, prominent among the captains of the mobs;

but to the seminaries of the city belonged the shame and dishonour of

having contributed mostly all the directors, guides, and active

instigators of the two-days’ carnival of crime, lust, and looting.

Employés of the post office and telegraph departments were along among

the rioters, but chiefly for loot.

Among the organisers of the plot, but not in the actual execution of it,

were a notary of the city, an engineer, a well-known wealthy citizen,

two minor officers, two sons of a rich merchant, and members of the

staff of the _Bessarabetz_.

None of these had been arrested when I left Kishineff, on the 30th of

May last.

The question of official responsibility has been raised, and a circular

alleged to have been issued by M. de Plehve has been published which

would tend to connect the Minister of the Interior with an intimate

knowledge of the intended outbreak. No one in Kishineff with whom I came

in contact knew of any such circular. Charges of complicity were freely

made against the Government by many leading Jews, but no proofs of any

kind were adduced. These charges were entirely based upon the culpable

inaction of Governor Von Raaben, and the all but active participation of

the head of the City Police in the riots, along with the well-known

anti-Semitic record and feeling of the Vice-Governor, Ostrogoff.

Official responsibility might be deduced from these facts, but I failed

to discover any evidence, outside these circumstances, which could even

indirectly bring home to the Government the charge of guilty connivance

in the _Bessarabetz_ plot.

The Governor was, beyond all doubt, the person most to blame for the

crimes which were allowed to disgrace the capital of his province and a

civilised city during two whole days. And he was forewarned in time of

what was coming.

Ten days before Easter he was waited upon by leading Jewish citizens and

his attention called to the incendiary appeals of the _Bessarabetz_, in

connection with the murder of the boy at Doubossar. General Von Raaben

assured them that they need not dread any disturbance, as he would not

hesitate to employ all the military force at his disposal in order to

preserve law and order. He fulfilled this promise on Easter Sunday and

Monday by refusing to leave his house during the forty-eight hours in

which the slaughter of forty-five victims of the anti-Semitic crusade

was carried out.

It has been alleged that the Governor, on realising the gravity of the

first day’s events, wired to St. Petersburg for authority to declare a

state of siege. This I believe to be untrue. M. de Plehve’s explicit

statements, as given in his second communication to Mr. Arnold White,

dispose of this allegation. In face of the clear language of the

Criminal Code it would be an absurd and unnecessary proceeding on the

part of the Governor.

Clause 340 of this Code, and Clauses 1 and 8 of the supplement to

Section 316, of Vol. II., give, I am informed, the fullest powers to the

administration of any province or city to take all necessary measures

for quelling riots or disturbances which threaten to become a menace to

life or property. There could, therefore, be no excuse or ambiguity in

the language of the law necessitating such a message, as that alleged,

to the central Government. What happened, in all probability, was this:

Someone in lower authority, seeing the criminal neglect of the Governor

in presence of such a situation as was developed on Monday morning, may

have telegraphed to M. de Plehve an account of what was taking place.

This would necessarily have to be verified, in reply to messages from

the Minister, and in this way, as he relates in his despatch to Mr.

Arnold White, he ordered martial law to be proclaimed on Monday evening;

unfortunately after most of the murders and other outrages had been

committed.

In an official sense only M. de Plehve is answerable for the conduct of

his subordinates, as all Ministers are, under similar circumstances,

even in constitutionally governed countries; but without evidence, which

has not yet been forthcoming from any quarter, I refuse to credit

accusations of direct cognisance of, or complicity in, the plot which

owed its origin to the indications of a powerful local paper; its plan

and purpose to local anti-Semites; and in the execution of which several

minor officials of the local administration, some police officers,

employés of public departments, students, Seminarists, and Moldavian

and Russian artisans were notoriously engaged. In character it was a

savage anti-Semitic outbreak, and in purpose a terrorising demonstration

against the Jews as advocates of Socialism and suspected enemies of the

Tsar’s Government.

M. de Plehve’s borrowed version of the origin and objects of the

outbreak is the concoction of incriminated local officials, and members

of the _Bessarabetz_ staff. It is therefore, and on that account,

prejudiced and untrue.

CHAPTER XI

V. DOCUMENTS

(I) _Petition addressed by the Jews of Kishineff to the Director-General

of the Police Department sent from St. Petersburg by M. de Plehve to

investigate the causes of the massacres._

TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE DIRECTOR OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT:

We, the numerous Jewish inhabitants of the town of Kishineff, having

suffered from an inhuman and sanguinary outburst which resulted in

unprecedented plundering on the part of an unrestrained mob on the 6th

and 7th (19th and 20th) of April, perceive in the arrival of your

Excellency into our town an unmistakable sign that the Supreme

Government takes an interest in the causes responsible for the sad

event, and in the conditions which made the occurrences assume such

terrible proportions. In this case we, the Jewish population of the town

of Kishineff, are convinced that your Excellency will not refuse to

listen to our complaints as sufferers.

It is impossible, in our opinion, to attribute the causes of the present

outbreak to the economical exploitation of the Christians by the Jewish

inhabitants. Hitherto there has been no friction between Jews and

Christians, in Bessarabia in general and in Kishineff in particular.

This state of affairs is explained partly by the peaceful character of

the local population, partly by the favourable economic condition of the

province. The result has been that for the last twenty years there has

been no collision whatever between the two groups of the population in

the province of Bessarabia; and whilst in the South and Southwest of

Russia several outbreaks against the Jews have occurred, peace and order

reigned at Kishineff.

When in the eighties the whole South was ablaze with attacks against

the Jews, not a single spark found its way into Bessarabia. During all

those years the province suffered on several occasions from failure of

crops, and yet the Christians never thought of attributing the cause of

economical troubles to their Jewish neighbours. The present year,

following upon a very good one for Bessarabia, could offer no reason

whatever for hostile feelings between Jews and Christians on economical

ground.

We are therefore of opinion that the economical question must be

entirely excluded from a consideration of the recent massacres. Not only

does the rich and fertile province of Bessarabia secure an easy

existence for every kind of work, but it is also quite free from the

vagabond element of the rabble in seaports, from whom the rioters are

usually recruited. The recent outbreaks, unequalled even in the history

of attacks on the Jews, are so entirely out of harmony with the usual

social life and habits of the province, that we must necessarily look

for the reasons not in the relations existing between Jews and

Christians, but in special events which have taken place during the last

few years, and in certain occurrences immediately preceding the

outbreak. Among such events we count, in the first instance, the

influence of the local press, the only representative of which is the

_Bessarabetz_. This paper has been established for over five years.

Before its existence there was no local organ in the province (with the

exception of the short-lived _Bessarabsky Viestnik_). Thus the

_Bessarabetz_ was bound to begin its activity upon virgin soil, and its

influence was, for this very reason, considerable from the commencement.

In the second year of its existence the paper began a systematic

campaign of Jew-baiting, which took a much more monstrous form than that

in any other paper. The _Bessarabetz_ evidently made a special feature

of Jew-baiting. We could quote articles which plainly incite the mob to

exterminate the Jews. The local population, with only one paper, the

_Bessarabetz_, at its disposal, the Censor having refused to authorise

another organ, were told day by day that “_the Jews are enemies_,” and

that “_the Jews must be destroyed_.”

The local Censor, in the person of the administrative power, evidently

found such a tendency useful from some other point of view, otherwise

his attitude remains quite incomprehensible. It naturally followed that

the average reader, and especially the half-educated mass, had in the

end to adopt the views of the press which told them that the

extermination of the Jews was not only desirable but also possible. This

is one phase of the state of affairs,--the preparatory stage, consisting

in the endeavour to influence the local population towards one end and

in one particular direction. The absence of any other local organs, the

attitude of the Censor, and the daily activity of several individuals

under the leadership of the editor of the _Bessarabetz_, helped forward

the movement. There is hardly a number of the paper which did not

contain an attack on the Jews. Phrases like “_death to the Jews_,” “_all

the Jews must be killed_,” were suggested regularly as the means of

solving the Jewish question. Being the only local organ the

_Bessarabetz_ is read in all the taverns and teashops, and it is evident

to what an extent this paper could foster the hatred of the Christians

towards the Jews and how all-pervading its influence upon the passions

of human nature must have been.

In order to convince his readers of the necessity of solving the Jewish

question, especially in the spirit advocated by the paper, the editor of

the _Bessarabetz_ availed himself of the circumstances, inexplicable at

the beginning, attending the murder of a lad living in Doubossar. As

insinuatingly as possible he attributed the disappearance of the lad to

ritual murder by the Jews, and to the alleged requirement of Christian

blood. The official denial of the accusation by the competent judicial

authorities was purposely worded in such a way as to be only half

convincing.

All these circumstances, together with the general attitude of the

_Bessarabetz_, could not but create such a state of mind in the mob that

one stone thrown into a Jewish window was sufficient to call forth a

regular attack. We are unable to trace the source whence came the

circulars read in the taverns and according to which: “the Tsar had

ordered the extermination of the Jews during the three days of Easter.”

We must, however, remark that under the conditions existing, it was

impossible for the mob not to consider these circulars as the logical

sequel to the campaign of the _Bessarabetz_ extending over a course of

years.

If we now turn to the lesson which the population of Kishineff could

take from the action of the local administrative authorities towards the

Jews, we see that the mass could not but come to the conclusion that

what was unlawful with regard to any other section of the inhabitants,

was legal and permissible where Jews were concerned. These acts include

the expulsion of Jews from various localities, subsequently recognised

as unjust by the Senate; and the actions of individuals, as, for

instance, the _Pristav_ Von Oglio.

The Jewish population, becoming aware long before the festivals of the

attitude of the crowd and of the dangers that threatened them, addressed

themselves through their representatives to the Governor of the

province, and asked him to take the necessary measures to protect them

and their property. The Governor gave them a reply of a very assuring

nature, relying upon which the Jews considered it needless to think of

self-defence.

Under these circumstances the Easter festival approached with danger

feared by all the population. It was talked of publicly and openly; it

was no secret even to the authorities. Strangely enough, however, not

only did the local government take no preparatory measures against a

possible outbreak, but even when the attack began it neglected to take

the steps within its power which would have prevented the massacres from

assuming unheard-of proportions, and of which it is impossible to speak

without feelings of horror and pity. Before the very eyes of the police

almost incredible havoc was worked upon human victims, and cruelties

committed unequalled in the history of Russia during the past few

decades. The military power remained inactive and, for reasons

altogether incomprehensible, the local government did not avail itself

of the rights and privileges accorded to it in such cases by the § 340

of the Criminal Code and by § 1 and § 8 of the additions to § 316.

Remaining unmoved itself, it kept inactive the military forces and thus

encouraged the mob. The latter, perceiving the passive attitude of the

authorities, soon ceased breaking the windows and took to sacking houses

and shops, and finally to murder and violation.

In their complaints addressed by the sufferers to the public

prosecutor, they pointed to cases where the police encouraged the

rioters by the words: “Kill the Jews!” (Byei Zhidoff!). Jews who had

armed themselves in self-defence were soon disarmed by the police. The

result of such an unheard-of state of affairs has been the loss of 45

lives, with 86 dangerously wounded and 500 slightly wounded, and the

violation of women and children--in a word, all the horrors of a

massacre.

It is not astonishing that when some of the rioters were arrested they

expressed surprise, asking: “Why they were being arrested, since it had

been permitted to kill the Jews?” There was an instance in which the mob

was engaged over eight hours plundering one house, situated in a

populous street, without being stopped, although the sufferers applied

for help to all the authorities. Only towards five o’clock in the

afternoon of the 7th (20th) of April, when the military were called upon

to check the riot, did the rabble cease its terrible work.

The horrors and crimes committed have brought about a state of things

which, offering no guarantee as far as life and property are concerned,

prevents the inhabitants from resuming their peaceful occupations. The

people, deprived of their homes and property, are trembling for their

lives. The losses cannot be exactly estimated, but they amount to

several millions of roubles, and the fire that has broken out in

Kishineff is spreading all over the province. The Jewish population

therefore trusts that your Excellency will restore order and

tranquillity and protect the Jewish inhabitants from the dangers

threatening their lives and property. The arrival of your Excellency

into our town has already inspired us with the hope that definite and

energetic measures will be taken.

* * * * *

(II) _List of the killed and those that died from wounds in the

Hospital._

1. Seltzer, Michel Josiphov.

2. Makhlin, Moses Chaskelev, 45 years, Asia Street, No. 13, killed by a

bootmaker; his daughter was also killed; murderers armed with hammers.

3. Berladsky, Hosea Abramovitz, Asia Street, No. 13, had hidden himself

in the attic, and was thrown into the street.

4. Kainarsky, Kopel Davidovitz, 60 years old. His grandsons know the

murderer. The sons are in the hospital. Kainarsky was killed in the

slaughter-house; he lived in the Mountzeskaya road. His money was taken

from him and his abdomen was opened and filled with feathers.

5. Tounik, Jacob Elchunov, killed in his own house.

6. Kogan, Abraham Routor, killed in the slaughter-house; was a dealer in

fowls.

7. Menduk, Mottel Davidovitz, shop-keeper in the Mountzeskaya Street,

killed in the slaughter-house in the stables; wife and children in

Berlin (?) in very poor circumstances.

8. Ullman, Israel Yacoblewitz, wine-shop proprietor near the botanical

gardens; wife and children in Berlin.

9. Shalistal, Israel Leiservitz.

10. Baranovitz, Benja Shimenov, lived in Gostinaya Street, No. 33. With

him in the same house 8 men were killed.

11. Fanarnei, Eiss Davidovitz (?); lived near the slaughter-house. The

daughter Fliga is in the hospital, and is ignorant of the father’s

death.

12. Salapter, Ben-zion Leibov, lived in Gostinaya Street, No. 33;

killed; the roof was torn off by the mob who killed Galantor, cattle

dealer, and robbed him of 1500 roubles, and others with clubs.

13. Goldiss, Chaim Leibov.

14. Chaskelevitz, David Nisselev, smith; killed together with his

grandmother. His sister, 12 years old (violated), has since died in the

hospital.

15. Wouller, Leinha; married, no children; killed defending his sister

Feya, aged 13, who was violated and killed; wife now at home.

16. Liss, Hirsch Yankelev, killed in the courtyard; lived at the corner

of Gostinaya Street, No. 2; dealer in bread, etc. Son was in the

hospital, student of the commercial school.

17. Krupnik, Idel; lived in Krovskaya Street, No. 52.

18. Krupnik, Isaac, son of the former.

19. Drachmann, David Moisuv; baker, worked in the bakery of Silberstein.

20. Greenspoon, Mordecai; killed with a knife. The murderers mutilated

the body.

21. Byeletzky, Isaac David Mendelev.

22. Kantor, Joseph Abramovitz; joiner, lived in Gostinaya Street, No.

33, 28 years old, married.

23. Bolgar, Hirsch Chaimov; commission agent at the railway station;

killed in the courtyard; married, 8 children.

24. Nissenson, Chaim Nissinov, formerly a bookkeeper. Died in the

hospital the following day, in consequence of blows received on the head

with clubs; he was in a terrible state.

25. Urrmann, Samuel Baruch, died in the hospital.

26. Weinstein, Abraham; bootmaker, 47 years old; died in the hospital.

27. Kiegel, Moshe Samuel; lived in Ismailovsk Street, shopkeeper, 27

years old; married, no children.

28. Brachmann, Aaron Isaacov; his wife is now in the hospital.

29. Rosenfeld, Isaac Yankelev.

30. Greenberg, Joseph Hirsch Danilov. Lived in Nicolaievskai Street, No.

33.

31. Charidon, David Abrahamov, brought in a box (to hospital or

cemetery?) with parts of his body cut off; single.

32. Kodja (?), Beila Leiserovna.

33. Katzap, Rose Falikovna; lived in Gostinaya Street, No. 33; killed in

the yard; lived with her son.

34. Papagei (?), Chaja Sarah Abramovna.

35. Berger, Itlia, 52 years old; had come on a visit to Kishineff.

36. Spivak, Pinya Isaacov.

37. Fishmann, Simeon; 6 months old; smothered whilst the mother defended

herself.

38. Michel Shaev Lashkoff.

39. Wolowitz, Kalmann, 60 years old; died in the hospital.

40. Kiegelmann, Chaya Leah, 38 years old, died in the hospital; daughter

employed in the free reading room in the professional school.

[This list is not complete. It was probably prepared soon after the

massacres. A few dead bodies have been found since the first lists were

compiled.--M. D.]

* * * * *

(III) _Extracts from a report upon the outrages by two Christian

ladies._

Seltzer. Gostinaya Street, No. 75. His daughter rushed to the police

station, asking for help. The police replied: “We shall do nothing.” The

father escaped, but was caught by the crowd and killed; the policeman

who took him to the hospital trampled him under his feet.

The Jews assembled on Monday, and armed themselves in self-defence, but

the police officer, Dobroselsky, ordered them to disarm.

Makhlin. Asiatskaya Street, No. 13. Whilst the crowd was at its

murderous work in this place, the Jews addressed themselves to the

military, asking for help. The reply was: “We have no orders.” About 300

Jews assembled near the barracks, when suddenly a drunken sergeant

(feldwebel) rushed in, calling out to the Jews: “Dogs, I shall kill all

of you.” The Jews rushed away, frightened, and fell into the hands of

the mob.

Makhlin, Berladsky, Greenspoon, and Nissenson were killed.

The daughter of Berladsky was thrown down from the attic.

The daughter of Makhlin had the skin of her finger torn off, together

with the rings.

Greenspoon. (The following is told by his wife.) She had hidden herself,

together with two little children and a neighbour, in a shed. When her

husband was being beaten in the yard she rushed out to defend him, but

one ruffian struck the child in the face and pushed her back into the

shed. She found the dead body of her husband only on the following

morning, in a neighbouring yard. In the same house there were wine

vaults, and the crowd drank, shouted, and danced upon the corpses.

Myntsheskaya Road. Forty families lived here.

Munduk.

Meier Weismann.

Kogan, Abraham, was running towards the town to save himself, when he

was caught by the crowd and struck upon the head. His wife, who was with

him, was caught by fifteen men, who violated her, in the open road, one

after the other. A daughter, 22 years old, and two sons, 16 and 18 years

old, were wounded, and when they sought refuge in the house of a retired

Colonel, who was cashier in the gut-works, he refused to shelter them. A

converted Jew showed equal cruelty with regard to the victims.

Israel Ullmann. When the crowd left him, thinking he was dead, his

little son came, crying: “Father, father!” Ullmann lifted up his head,

and some of the Christian onlookers shouted: “Ullmann is still alive.”

The murderers returned and finished him.

Fanorissi Siss and his wife. The wife had nails driven through her eyes.

Chariton.

Kainarsky.

Baronowitz, Gostinaya Street, No. 33. Whilst the crowd was breaking the

windows, the Assistant Police Officer passed, but took no notice of what

was happening. The officer Goresonsky passed afterwards and showed the

same indifference. The son of Baronowitz hid himself in the closet; the

crowd tore off the roof and killed him. When the father saw that the son

was being killed, he wept and begged the murderers to take everything,

but to spare his son. The murderers replied: “Be quiet, Jew; we shall

soon do the same to you.” Whilst he was endeavouring to save the other

children he was dragged back into the yard.

Baronowitz fell on his knees before the officer Solovkin, kissed his

hands, and told him that his son had been killed. “Well,” said the

officer, “don’t worry; it is all over now in your house, they will harm

you no more.”

Drachmann. Gostinaya Street, No. 33.

Skyljanskaya Rogatka. When the Jews went to the police station to ask

for help, the inspector replied: “Serves you right, why do you use our

blood?”

A little girl of ten years, having begged the officer Osovsky to protect

her from the murderers, the officer replied: “Go away, you Jewish brat.”

Kiegelmann, killed; wife died in the hospital. A son and a daughter, 18

years old, defended themselves, when six ruffians seized the girl by the

hair, dragged her out into the yard, and attempted to violate her. She

fought desperately, defending her honour, her clothes were torn off her

body, but at last the ruffians left her. The mother rushed to the

daughter’s assistance, but was severely injured.

Weinstein. The wife was ill (she has died since) in bed. The crowd, led

by some Government officials, came into the house and beat the husband

until he fell down bleeding and motionless. The little children defended

the bedridden mother. One little girl, 10 years old, having thrown her

arms round her mother, had her arm cut off; another daughter and her

intended had their teeth broken, and their lips cut off. The murderers

were two peasants whom they knew well, and who used to be on very good

terms with the family. They left the house shouting: “Where are Itzko

and Israel [two sons], we shall kill them.”

Volowitz. Killed; one daughter dangerously wounded; she begged the

murderers to kill her together with her father. A younger daughter

rushed into the streets, imploring the military for help, but the

officer took no notice of her.

Alexandrovskaya Street, No. 37. Golder hid himself in the cellar, having

with him a child 2 years old. There he passed the night. The child, in

consequence of the cold, died the next day.

Fishmon, Solomon. The crowd was led by several men, evidently belonging

to the better class of society. The wife of F. tried to escape, holding

in her arms a child 10 months old, when somebody struck her in the back

so violently that she fell, and in her fall smothered the infant with

her own body.

Not far away from the scene of the murder, the Superintendent of the

Police, the _Pristav_ Solovkin, and the patrol were looking on quietly

and unmoved.

A Christian boy of about 15 jumped upon a tram, asking: “Are there no

Jews here?” There was only one Jewish woman whose husband had just been

killed, and who, tremblingly, managed to hide herself behind her

neighbour, a Christian woman. At last the reply was given: “No Jews

here.” Then a gentleman, well dressed, having a hat on, and with rings

on his fingers, asked the boy: “Well, how goes it?” “Very well,” replied

the youth. “By the evening we shall have killed all the Jews.” The

gentleman encouragingly patted the boy on the cheek.

The Superintendent of the Police visited the crowd on the first day of

Easter, addressed a few words to them, and went away. The crowds

shouted: “Hurray, bravo!” and at once began breaking the windows.

Elie Mutshnik and 150 Jews came on the first day of the riots to the

Vice-Governor to ask for help. The latter ordered the soldiers to

disperse them.

Whilst the crowd of rioters was attacking a family in which there were

little children, a lady, passing by, said to her husband, a Government

official, that she was sorry for the children. “Never mind,” said her

husband, “let them get their reward.” An eyewitness says that the

military and the police refused to help the victims, and coolly looked

on whilst houses were sacked, and men and women killed.

In Asiatskaya passage (Perenlok) all the houses were destroyed, and many

women violated.

Among the rioters were women, girls, students of the seminary,

government officials,[9] and some belonging to the better classes.

CHAPTER XII

NOTES AND COMMENTS

There is another anti-Semite organ edited by Pavolachi Kroushevan. It is

named the _Znamya_, or _Standard_. Though published in St. Petersburg,

it has a large sale in Bessarabia.

Both the _Bessarabetz_ and the _Znamya_ have studiously refrained from

alluding to the indignation excited in Western Europe and in the United

States over the consequences of their savage appeals to fanatical mobs.

No other papers being read in Kishineff by the anti-Jewish section of

the populace, these people remain unaffected by this outburst of public

reprobation in other countries. They are under the impression that the

attack on the hated Hebrews was a good work done for the Tsar, the

church, and themselves.

The credulity of the average Russian, in all anti-Hebrew matters, is

boundless. A Christian lady in Odessa told me that her servant, a very

intelligent-looking young girl, informed her a few evenings after the

horrible events at Kishineff, that the Jews of Odessa were planning the

murder of all the Christian children in the city. When the girl was

asked what information she had of this intended wholesale slaughter, she

replied: “I was told so! The Jews will put poisoned chocolate on

Christian doorsteps some night, and then, when the children come out for

school or play the following morning, they will see the chocolate, eat

it, and die. All the Jews in Odessa should be burned out!”

* * * * *

The popes, or Russian priests, are not in any special sense

anti-Semitic. Anyhow, they wield little, if any, influence of that or

any other kind upon even the simple and superstitious peasantry. The

Russian pope is, in fact, a man who has neither social nor political

importance of any kind. He is not invited to the houses of the nobility,

nor is he looked up to or relied upon by the people. He is a badly

educated Mujik, as a rule, and commands neither the confidence of his

own class nor the esteem of the ruling order. When he marries, his

family ties and domestic interests are believed to be his chief

considerations, while the worldly benefits of his clerical position,

comparatively small though these may be, are believed to be his primary

concern in life. Whatever little distinction belongs to his garb and

calling arises entirely from the fact that he is, in reality, a clerical

soldier of the Tsar; earning his living as an officer of a religious

army, whose head and commander-in-chief is the great Emperor of all the

Russians. He is, in another sense, the Tsar’s moral policeman among the

Russian people.

* * * * *

The ordinary Russian policeman corresponds in many respects to the

average member of the Royal Irish Constabulary. He is a man of the

peasantry, of fine physique, and of unbounded self-importance. He lacks,

however, the education and superior intelligence of his Irish rural

prototype, while his reputation is on a lower moral plane. He is badly

officered, as a rule, and this accounts largely for the suspicion which

attaches to the performance of his duties in districts where the

numerous vexatious restrictions in operation against the “Semitic

malady” are so many temptations to the guardian of the law “to wink the

other eye” at evasions of legal obstructions made profitable _not_ to

see. His pay is small, and this, too, is an explanation of his official

dereliction in these matters.

Strenuous efforts have been, and are still being, made to induce a more

educated class of Russians to officer the police force of the Empire,

but with slow and uncertain results, so far. The nobility look upon the

army as the only honourable service open to them, apart from diplomatic

and administrative posts. Trade and commerce are, of course, _infra

dig._, and the police is even more so, from the point of view of all

sections of the aristocracy, poor and rich, fortunate and the reverse.

There is not, strictly speaking, a Russian middle class, but there will

soon be an intellectually developed class of men from a corresponding

social grade turned out of Russia’s fine colleges and gymnasiums, from

whose ranks an educated body of officials will be recruited for this and

kindred public employments. Well officered, and better paid than they

now are, the Russian police would soon rank in efficiency, as well as in

appearance, with the best peace-preserving forces of any country.

* * * * *

A Russian city mob has little or no fear of the police force. Nor do the

ordinary military, as a rule, inspire rioters with any sense of serious

apprehensions. The explanation is probably due to the immediate kinship

of class and feeling between the rough elements of an urban community

and the conscript force of which they are a potential part, and (in

anti-Semitic outbreaks) to the fact that policeman, soldier, and artisan

share a common sentiment of antipathy towards the Jew. It is

emphatically otherwise with Cossacks. The mob exhibits no hesitation

when confronted with this arm of the military power. It disperses in

double-quick time. I was told by one of the foreign Consuls in Odessa

that on one occasion, some fifteen years ago, there was a sudden

outbreak of mob violence which neither military nor police could, or

would, quell. They attacked the houses of some foreign residents, and

the Consul was called upon for protection. He went at once to the

Governor, and suggested the employment of a dozen Cossacks to clear that

part of the city of the disturbers. A troop of these splendid horsemen

was turned loose without delay, and the riots were at an end within an

hour. Nothing can stop their sweeping charge through a city’s streets.

They ride over or through obstacles, human or otherwise, knout in hand,

and spare no one who has not already cleared out of their path. As the

Consul remarked to me when discussing the action, and inaction, of the

military at Kishineff, “A dozen Don Cossacks would have settled the

whole business with the rioters on Easter Sunday in half an hour.”

* * * * *

During an attack upon a Jew’s shop in Kishineff, an artillery officer,

who was lodging in a Christian house opposite, saw a soldier enter the

premises, and join in the looting of the unfortunate Hebrew’s goods. The

officer, indignant at the disgraceful act of the soldier, rushed across

the street, and seizing the military culprit, tore off his number, with

the view of reporting him to the Colonel of his regiment. The mob turned

upon the officer, who was compelled to seek shelter in his quarters. The

windows were smashed with stones, and he was called upon to return the

badge containing the soldier’s number. This he refused to do, and

telephoned to the nearest military barracks for assistance. He was

ultimately rescued from the mob’s threatening display.

* * * * *

It was difficult to obtain any reliable account of the actual number of

persons who were arrested, tried, and punished for the murders and

looting on the 19th and 20th of April. M. Polak, the Procurator from

Odessa, came to Kishineff to put the law in motion against the rioters.

About seven hundred out of the fifteen hundred or two thousand persons

implicated were lodged in prison. M. Polak had to rely upon the local

authorities to execute the orders of the Government through him. After

his return to Odessa no less than five hundred of the prisoners were

liberated, following an inquiry before the _Juges d’Instruction_ which

was remarkable for the hurried manner in which it was conducted.

Punishment averaging a few months’ imprisonment was meted out to about

150, by the judges of the peace, before whom the cases were sent by the

_Juges d’Instruction_. Some fifty were held on more serious charges, but

the results of their trials are not yet made known. They will presumably

be tried before the Criminal Court of Assize.

None of the known local instigators of the outbreak were arrested up to

the date of my departure from Kishineff.

Some of the rioters protested, on arrest, that they were led to believe

that the local authorities had lent their sanction to the massacre and

looting, in order to punish the Jews for being the enemies of the Tsar’s

Government and the supporters of Socialism.

The _Juge d’Instruction_, M. Davidovitch, who had to deal with the

accused in the first instance, was at one time a contributor to the

_Bessarabetz_--the active agent of the outbreak. I was informed that he

had written an article for the paper shortly after the massacres,

showing how the Jews were themselves the sole cause of the attack made

upon them at Easter.

Two especially revolting outrages, the particulars of which have been

published, one, the killing of a woman who was _enceinte_, and the

putting of feathers in her body after disembowelling her; and the murder

of a child two months old, were not included in the list of murders

which I obtained, and I am not satisfied that these two crimes were

actually committed as alleged. The Jewish doctors in the Hebrew Hospital

could not confirm the report or particulars of these two cases. In the

instance of the infant, they told me that the mother, in defending

herself, and subsequently in her flight from the mob, had let the child

fall, and that its death really happened in that way.

The foundation for the other and more inhuman story was, I think, this:

A Jew named Kainarsky, a dealer in sheep and cattle gut, was attacked,

robbed, and murdered in a slaughter-house. The mob cut open his bowels

and put feathers inside; prompted, doubtless, to this act of barbarity

by the nature of the poor fellow’s calling and business. It was an

outrage base and inhuman enough, in all conscience, but not quite so

fiendish in character as that of the account which represented a woman

with child as the object of this peculiar atrocity.

The man thus murdered is included in the list of victims given to me in

Kishineff, while no woman is mentioned as having undergone such

mutilation, a circumstance which, it is sincerely to be hoped, disposes

of the story as untrue.

* * * * *

“Byei Zhidoff!” the terrible cry which was the signal of slaughter at

Easter, means “Kill the Jews!” Zhidoff is a term of Russian contempt for

the Jew.

* * * * *

The “Narodovostvo,” or People’s Freedom Party, which is supposed to be a

growing movement in Russia, has no branch or supporters in Kishineff, at

least I failed to obtain information of its existence. It represents an

aspiration rather than an original force. A student who joined the

rioters on the first day’s outbreak, with the object of diverting the

mob, if possible, from resorting to extreme violence against the Jews,

began by raising a cry for constitutional freedom. The crowd did not

understand him, whereupon he shouted “Down with the Government at St.

Petersburg!” He was instantly knocked down, and would have been killed

had the police not interfered on seeing a Russian in danger. He was

taken off to prison.

Ten days after the Kishineff massacres there was an attempted Socialist

demonstration at Odessa. It was in some way supposed to be a May Day

Labour affair, but assumed the form of an Anarchist turnout, of which

the police appeared to have had timely intimation. A band of some forty

men, workers and _prolétaires_, attempted to march toward the centre of

the city, with a red flag at their head. After proceeding along a small

street, and raising a few feeble cries, they were pounced upon by the

police and taken to prison. It was found, on examination, that nineteen

of the forty were Jews. They were all liberated after a few days’

detention.

* * * * *

One ground of objection to the Zionist movement for the repatriation of

the Jews is that the Hebrews, who are not a military people, would be

shut off from European help while being at the mercy of Turkish rule and

of Arab hostility in Palestine. The implied loss of European protection

may be an imaginary risk. The record of the Turks in the matter of

modern anti-Semitism compares more than favourably with that of the

tender feelings of European Christianity. The Arab is of the same racial

family as the descendants of Father Abraham, and even were the offspring

of Ishmael more numerous in Palestine than they are estimated to be,

they might be trusted to show no more savage propensities towards their

Israelitish kindred than Russian Seminarists or Roumanian Christians

have done in recent years.

Two or three millions of Jews in Palestine would, however, develop a

national sentiment and idea that would soon nourish a spirit of

patriotism capable of defending them from possible Arab aggression. The

Jews of the world would be their foreign friends and allies, while the

civilised nations inhabited by the scattered Hebrews could not in reason

neglect to take a sympathetic interest in the protection and welfare of

one of the oldest peoples in the world, restored again to the Promised

Land of Israel.

Russia’s diplomatic common sense should see in the Zionist movement a

noble racial effort, worthy of assistance on its merits, but especially

calling for Russian help and encouragement. The creators of the Pale of

Settlement, and those responsible for the poverty and suffering which

are alone due to this cause, owe some reparation to the people who have

been thus treated. No ten million pounds which Russia could spend on

her army and navy would render her empire a better or more lasting

service than what would follow to her domestic peace if a sum of that

amount, or more if necessary, were devoted to the carrying out of the

great work of the Zionist leaders. If Russia will only trust and obey

her better instincts in adopting a humane policy of this kind, coupled

with a stern moral warfare against the propagation of the

blood-accusation legend inside the Empire, she will cure the “Semitic

malady,” which will otherwise grow to be an increasing and more

dangerous evil within her borders.

* * * * *

The Russian Jew as an emigrant to the United States is a subject which

will demand serious consideration after public interest in the Kishineff

horrors subsides. All who can find means to go will leave Bessarabia,

unless the Tsar is inclined, or induced, to speak words which will be an

Imperial guarantee against further violence. No such words have yet

been uttered. This is much to be regretted by all who believe in the

humanity of the Emperor’s personal disposition. It tends to create the

possibly erroneous and unjust suspicion that the terror created by the

massacres in April is to be used by the Tsar’s advisers “_pour

encourager les autres_,” to lessen the extent of the “Semitic malady” by

emigrating from Russia. But, in any case, large numbers of Jews will

endeavour to quit the Pale, and their relatives and friends who fled in

1891, and who have prospered in America, may be counted upon to lend

assistance to the new aspirants for United States citizenship and

protection.

It is the proletarian Jew and the members of the small huckstering class

who are the chief undesirables in Russia now. They are three-fourths of

the Semitic population of the Pale, and their numbers are increasing.

I saw thousands of these in the cities and towns, from Odessa to Warsaw.

They are not a drunken nor an abnormally immoral class. Russian

officials have testified to their general good conduct, on the whole;

when due allowance is made for the precarious nature of their

employments and the poverty of their lives. I observed how uniform were

the healthy looks of their children, even amidst some of the most

wretched surroundings. This is a good testimony to personal character

and civic qualities. In England the children of the lowest classes are

neglected and underfed by parents who expend in gin and beer what would

provide more nourishment for their offspring. There is no corresponding

bad trait in the average proletarian Jew of the Pale.

There are, as a matter of course, traits of low cunning, of shady

subterfuge, and of other obnoxious qualities found among a people who

have been hunted and ground down for generations. It would amount to a

miracle of racial morality if such results did not follow from the

treatment and experiences of the Russian Jew. They are also sufferers

from the indifferent sanitary system of towns like Kishineff, where

there is an abundance of water badly utilised in municipal management

for the health and cleanliness of the poorer quarters and suburbs of the

city.

* * * * *

Their poverty and persecution, along with the habits peculiar to the

lowest grade of Hebrew humanity in Eastern Europe, render them

singularly objectionable in appearance; carrying with them, as they do,

all the traces of social degradation which cling to a pariah people as a

physical certificate of the wrongs and hardships they have had to

endure.

No country, be it ever so free, hospitable, or humane, could in reason

be expected to open its ports to such a class of emigrant in order to

relieve the Russian Government and nation of these wronged and

unfortunate undesirables. They must first be improved in the land of

their birth by more liberty and better treatment, or be sent for

change--for better conditions of industrial life and hopes--to

Palestine, where land labour could be provided for them. Transplantation

would be an effective remedy, if carried out under careful supervision.

The root qualities of the Jew--his intelligence, his faith, his intense

ambition to possess money--would, under a more favourable environment,

reclaim him from the induced vices which have naturally grown out of the

congenial surroundings of poverty, suffering, and injustice. The human

being who can succeed in living at all the semblance of a civilised

existence, under the depressing conditions obtaining for the Jew within

the towns of the Pale, could not fail in winning a better livelihood

where rural industries and _petit_ culture, such as the soil and

situation of Palestine will encourage, would be open to his

intelligence, ambition, and energies. Such a Jew has no hope in Russia.

He could not possibly meet a worse fate in Palestine. No other country

can be expected to give him the privilege of its citizenship. Therefore,

if he is not to be improved off the face of the earth by a corroding

poverty, or by periodical outbreaks like that of Kishineff, he should be

taken by the Zionist movement to where there are both the promise and

inspiration of a new life.

The Polish proletarian Jew has more virility than the Hebrew of the same

class within the Pale. He is no more prepossessing in appearance, while

it is not wronging him to say that he is less desirable, in some other

respects, as a citizen of another country. The Jews are sufficiently

numerous in Poland to enlist the co-operation of Socialist revolutionary

forces there, and thereby to obtain, by some means, a right to live.

They are not so powerless as those within the Pale, and Russia may soon

find it a wise and necessary policy to allow them to have a freer

access than they now enjoy to the resources of the country, in order to

lessen their growing numbers in the ancient capital of the Kingdom of

Poland. There are over a quarter of a million of them in Warsaw. They

would be a dangerous element there if driven to extremities, or in the

event of any complications arising between the Russian Empire and

Germany. In any case, the Polish Jew will work out his own destiny. He

has lived in Poland for over seven hundred years, and this long

experience of varied forms of fortune and of oppression gives him a

tenure and a hope which may yet win him back some of the rights and

privileges he once enjoyed before he lost the tolerant protection of the

Polish people in becoming the agent and tool of the Polish landed

aristocracy.

* * * * *

Since the foregoing parts of this book were prepared for the press, it

has been announced from Russia that Vice-Governor Ostrogoff has been

transferred from Kishineff to Stavropol, in the Caucasus. This action

marks the severe condemnation of this official’s conduct by the Russian

Government.

The head of the _gendarmerie_ at Kishineff has been retired from

service.

It has also been reported from apparently reliable sources that several

persons who were at first accused of participation in the massacres, and

liberated after a short detention in prison, have been re-arrested, and

will be tried in September. It is further stated that there are to be 53

indictments for manslaughter in addition to 34 prisoners already held

for trial, while 400 other cases are under investigation.

It has likewise been published in the press that former Governor Von

Raaben had asked for, and had been denied, an interview with the

Emperor.

According to reports circulated from Vienna on the 10th of July, the

special visit paid to Kishineff by the Minister of Justice was

responsible for the action of the authorities in re-arresting suspected

culprits, and for the intention to prosecute several of the prominent

instigators of the riots at Easter who had been arrested or accused for

their connection with the massacres up to the date of the author’s

departure from Kishineff.

From a similar Vienna source, it has been reported that one of these

prominent anti-Semites of Kishineff had committed suicide, as a result

of an inquiry instituted into his conduct during the disturbances.

The actual murderers of the Christian boy, Ribalenko of Doubossar, who

was declared by the _Bessarabetz_ newspaper to have been killed by the

Jews for sacrificial purposes, have been discovered and arrested. He was

killed by one Tischtchevko, the caretaker of the orchard in which the

body was found. The murderer confesses that the uncle of the boy took

part in committing the crime. Both the murderers are Russians and

Christians.

The latest published report of the Kishineff Relief Committee gives the

following account of the moneys received and how expended by that body:

“To the end of June 735,476 roubles have been received as follows:

RECEIPTS

Roubles

America, 192,443

England, 16,001

Germany, 35,675

Italy, 5,000

Holland, 1,000

Austria, 10,415

Roumania, 3,023

France, 9,248

Russia, 462,671

-------

Total, 735,476

EXPENDITURES

Roubles

Provisions, 14,700

To sufferers (directly), 273,622

To sufferers (indirectly), 30,000

To 35 families of those murdered or who

died of wounds, 87,500

To two families of invalids, 4,600

To the Ladies’ Committee, for preparing

linen and clothes and for a crèche, 4,000

To settling 50 families in Palestine, 50,000

-------

Total, 464,422

Balance in hand, 271,054

-------

Roubles, 735,476

“The number of families who suffered from the riots is given at about

2750. Applications for relief were received from 2538 families, to the

amount of 2,332,890 roubles. The number of persons murdered, or who died

of wounds, is put down at 47; severely wounded, 92; slightly wounded,

345. Some of the latter were treated by private doctors. The killed left

behind 35 widows and 123 orphans. The number of persons rendered unfit

for work has not yet been ascertained, but is so far given as 50. The

Committee is of opinion that in order to satisfy all the losses for

which only now claims are being made 200,000 roubles will still be

required.”

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND THE JEWS

(_From the Daily Press_)

WASHINGTON, June 15.--Through their representative association, B’nai

B’rith, the Jews of America to-day laid their case before President

Roosevelt and Secretary Hay, and they are content to abide by whatever

the Executive decides is best for them.

A statement of the proceedings given out at the White House concerning

the conference consisted of a memorandum submitted by the B’nai B’rith

on the recent Kishineff massacre, a tentative draft of a petition to the

Tsar, which it is desired this Government should unofficially or

semi-officially assist in delivering to the Tsar, and procuring a reply

thereto, and copies of the replies of Secretary Hay and President

Roosevelt to their callers.

The memorandum says that the facts concerning the Kishineff massacre as

officially reported by the Russian Government have appalled and

horrified not only the Jews in Russia and elsewhere, but the whole

American people, who want something done, and whose hostility to Russia,

if nothing is done, will become intensified and fixed.

In his reply to the memorandum Secretary of State John Hay said:

“No person of ordinary humanity can have heard without deep emotion the

story of the cruel outrages inflicted upon the Jews of Kishineff. These

lamentable events have caused the profoundest impression throughout the

world, but most especially in this country, where there are so many of

your coreligionists who form such a desirable element of our population

in industry, thrift, public spirit, and commercial morality.

“Nobody can ever make the Americans think ill of the Jews as a class or

as a race--we know them too well. In the painful crisis through which we

are now passing the Jews of the United States have given evidence of the

highest qualities--generosity, love of justice, and power of

self-restraining.

“The Government of the United States must exhibit the same qualities. I

know you do not doubt the sentiments of the President. No one hates more

energetically than he does such acts of cruelty and injustice as those

we deplore. But he must carefully consider all the circumstances and

then decide whether any official action can be taken in addition to the

impressive and most effective expressions of public opinion in this

country during the last month. You will have observed that no civilised

government in the world has yet taken official action--this

consideration alone would bid us to proceed with care.

“The Emperor of Russia is entitled to our respect, not merely as the

ruler of a great and friendly nation, but as a man whose personal

character is even more elevated than his exalted station. We should not

be justified in assuming that this enlightened sovereign, who has given

so many proofs of his devotion to peace and religious tolerance, has not

done and is not doing all that lies in his power to put a stop to these

atrocities, to punish the guilty, whether they belong to the ignorant

populace or to high official circles, and to prevent the occurrence of

the outrages which have so shocked humanity. In fact, all we know of the

state of things in Russia tends to justify the hope that even out of the

present terrible situation some good results may come; that He who

watches over Israel does not slumber, and that the wrath of man, now as

so often in the past, shall be made to praise Him.”

The call on the President at the White House followed, and there

President Roosevelt, after the memorandum was laid before him, said:

“Mr. Chairman: I need not dwell upon a fact so patent as the widespread

indignation with which the American people heard of the dreadful

outrages upon the Jews in Kishineff. I have never in my experience in

this country known of a more immediate or a deeper expression of the

sympathy for the victims and of horror over the appalling calamity that

has occurred.

“It is natural that while the whole civilised world should express such

a feeling, it should yet be most intense and widespread in the United

States; for of all the great powers I think I may say that the United

States is that country in which, from the beginning of its national

career, most has been done in the way of acknowledging the debt due to

the Jewish race, and of endeavouring to do justice to those American

citizens who are of Jewish ancestry and faith.

“One of the most touching poems of our own great poet, Longfellow, is

that on the Jewish cemetery in Newport, and anyone who goes through any

of the old cemeteries of the cities which preserve the records of

colonial times will see the name of many an American of Jewish race who,

in war or in peace, did his full share in the founding of this nation.

From that day to this, from the day when the Jews of Charleston, of

Philadelphia, of New York, supported the patriot cause and helped in

every way, not only by money, but by arms, Washington and his

colleagues, who were founding this Republic--from that day to the

present we have had no struggle, military or civil, in which there have

not been citizens of Jewish faith who played an eminent part for the

honour and credit of the nation.

“I remember once General Howard mentioning to me the fact that two of

his brigade commanders upon whom he had placed special reliance were

Jews. Among the meetings of the Grand Army which I have attended one

stands out with peculiar vividness--a meeting held under the auspices of

the men of the Grand Army of Jewish creed in the temple in Forty-fourth

Street--Temple Emanu-El--to welcome the returned veterans of the

Spanish-American war of Jewish faith.

“When in Santiago, when I was myself in the army, one of the best

colonels among the regular regiments who did so well on that day, and

who fought beside me, was a Jew. One of the commanders of the ships

which, in the blockade of the Cuban coast, did so well, was a Jew.

“In my own regiment I promoted five men from the ranks for valour and

good conduct in battle. It happened by pure accident, for I know nothing

of the faith of any one of them, that these included two Protestants,

two Catholics, and one Jew; and while that was a pure accident, it was

not without its value as an illustration of the ethnic and religious

make-up of our nation and of the fact that if a man is a good American,

that is all we ask, without thinking of his creed or his birthplace.

“In the same way, when I was Police Commissioner in New York, I had

experience after experience of the excellent service done--an excellent

work needing nerve and hardihood, excellent work of what I may call the

Maccabee type in the Police Department under me, by police officers of

Jewish extraction.

“Let me give you one little incident with a direct bearing upon this

question of persecution for race or religious reasons. You may possibly

recall, I am sure certain of my New York friends will recall, that

during the time I was Police Commissioner a man came from abroad--I am

sorry to say, a clergyman--to start an anti-Jewish agitation in New

York, and announced his intention of holding meetings to assail the

Jews. The matter was brought to my attention.

“Of course, I had no power to prevent those meetings. After a good deal

of thought I detailed a Jewish sergeant and forty Jewish policemen to

protect the agitator while he held his meetings; so he made his speeches

denouncing the Jews protected exclusively by Jews, which I always

thought was probably the most effective answer that could possibly be

made to him, and probably the best object lesson that we could give of

the spirit in which we Americans manage such matters.

“Now let me give you another little example dealing with a Russian Jew,

an experience I had while handling the Police Department, and that could

have occurred, I think, nowhere else than in the United States.

“There was a certain man I appointed under the following conditions: I

was attracted to him by being told on a visit to the Bowery branch of

the Young Men’s Christian Association that they had a young fellow

there, a Jew, who had performed a feat of great note in saving people

from a burning building, and that they thought he was just the type for

a policeman. I had him called up and told him to take the examination,

and see if he could get through. He did, and he passed.

“He has only been an excellent policeman, but he at once, out of his

salary, proceeded to educate his younger brothers and sisters, and he

got either two or three of his old kinsfolk over from Russia, through

the money he had saved, and provided homes for them.

“I have given you examples of men who have served under me in my

administration of the Police Department in New York and my regiment. In

addition thereto, some of my nearest social friends, some of those with

whom I have been closest in political life, have been men of Jewish

faith and extraction. Therefore, inevitably, I have felt a degree of

personal sympathy and personal horror over this dreadful tragedy, as

great as can exist in the minds of any of you gentlemen yourselves.

“Exactly as I should claim the same sympathy from any one of you for any

tragedy happening to any Christian people, so I should hold myself

unworthy of my present position if I failed to feel just as deep

sympathy and just as deep sorrow and just as deep horror over an outrage

like this done to the Jewish people in any part of the earth.

“I am confident that much good has already been done by the

manifestations throughout the country, without any regard to creed

whatsoever, of horror and sympathy over what has occurred. It is

gratifying to know--what we would, of course, assume--that the

Government of Russia shows the feelings of horror and indignation with

which the American people look upon the outrages at Kishineff, and is

moving vigorously not only to prevent their continuance, but to punish

the perpetrators.

“That government takes the same view of those outrages that our own

government takes of the riots and lynchings which sometimes occur in our

country, but do not characterise either our government or our people.

“I have been visited by the Russian Ambassador on his own initiative,

and in addition to what has been said to Secretary Hay, the Russian

Ambassador has notified me personally, without any inquiry upon my

part, that the Governor of Kishineff has been removed; that between

three hundred and four hundred of the participants in the outrages have

been arrested, and he voluntarily stated that those men would be

punished to the utmost that the law would permit.

“I will consider most carefully the suggestions that you have submitted

to me and whether the now-existing conditions are such that any further

official expression would be of advantage to the unfortunate survivors,

with whom we sympathise so deeply. Nothing that has occurred recently

has had my more constant thought, and nothing will have my more constant

thought, than this subject. In any proper way by which beneficial action

may be taken it will be taken, to show the sincerity of the historic

American position of treating each man on his merits as a man, without

the least reference to his creed, his race, or his birthplace.”

APPENDIX II

A LETTER FROM LEO TOLSTOY

The following is the translation of a letter from Count Leo Tolstoy to a

Jew who had asked his opinion concerning the outrages in Kishineff:

“I have received your letter. I had already received several similar

letters. All the writers request me, as you do, to express my opinion on

the events at Kishineff. It seems to me that these appeals are based on

a misunderstanding. My correspondents supposed that my words carried

weight, and I am therefore begged to express my opinion on an event so

important and so complicated in its origins as the crime committed at

Kishineff. The misunderstanding consists in demanding from me the work

of a publicist, whereas I occupy myself exclusively with a single

definite question, having nothing in common with contemporary

events--viz., the question of religion and its application to life. To

request from me the public expression of my opinion on contemporary

events is as illogical as it would be to demand such expression from any

other specialist who makes use of contemporary events to illustrate his

views. I cannot, like a publicist, even if I thought it would be useful,

express my opinions on everything that occurs, no matter how important

it may be. If I did so I should have to speak hurriedly and without

reflection, repeating what has been said by others, and then my opinions

would cease to have the importance for the sake of which their

expression is sought.

“As regards my views on the Jews and on the horrible doings at

Kishineff, they ought, it would seem, to be clear to all who would

interest themselves in my conception of life. I cannot regard the Jews

other than as brothers whom I love, not because they are Jews, but

because, like ourselves and everybody else, they are sons of the one

God the Father. Such love needs no effort on my part, for I have met and

known many excellent people among the Jews. My attitude towards the

Kishineff outrage is likewise defined by my religion and my conception

of life. When I read the first accounts in the newspapers, even before I

knew of the horrible details which afterwards came to light, I realised

the full horror of what had occurred and was filled with a profound pity

for the innocent victims of the barbarity of the mob, mingled with

astonishment at the bestial ferocities of these pretended Christians and

disgust and loathing towards the so-called educated people who stirred

up the mob and sympathised with its doings. But what I felt most deeply

was horror at the criminals who were really responsible for all that had

occurred, horror at our Government, with their clergy, who keep the

people in a state of ignorance and fanaticism, and with their bandit

horde of officials. The outrages at Kishineff are but the direct result

of the propaganda of falsehood and violence which our Government

conducts with such energy. The attitude of our Government towards these

events is only one more proof of the brutal egoism which does not flinch

from any measures, however cruel, when it is a question of suppressing a

movement which is deemed dangerous, and of their complete indifference

(similar to the indifference of the Turkish Government towards the

Armenian atrocities) towards the most terrible outrages which do not

affect Government interests.

“This is all I can say with regard to the events at Kishineff, but it

has all been said long ago by me. If you ask me what, in my opinion, the

Jews ought to do, my answer in that case, as in others, is the logical

outcome of that Christian teaching which I strive to understand and to

follow. For the Jews, as for all men, one thing, and one thing only, is

necessary for salvation; to follow as closely as may be the universal

rule, ‘Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you.’

They should fight the Government not by violence--that weapon should be

left to the Government--but by virtuous living to the exclusion not only

of all violence towards their neighbours, but of all participation in

violence, even when called upon by the Government instruments of

violence for their own advantage. This is all I can say with regard to

the horrible events at Kishineff; all this is very old and is well

known.”

APPENDIX III

Maxime Gorky, the Russian novelist, wrote the following letter to the

Kishineff Relief Committee:

“Russia has been disgraced more and more frequently of recent years by

dark deeds, but the most disgraceful of all is the horrible Jewish

massacre at Kishineff, which has awakened our horror, shame, and

indignation. People who regard themselves as Christians, who claim to

believe in God’s mercy and sympathy, these people, on the day

consecrated to the resurrection of their God from the dead, occupy the

time in murdering children and aged people, ravishing women, and

martyring the men of the race that gave them Christ.

“Who bears the blame of this base crime, which will remain on us like a

bloody blot for ages? We shall be unable to wash this blot from the sad

history of our dark country. It would be unjust and too simple to

condemn the mob. The latter was merely the hand which was guided by a

corrupt conscience, driving it to murder and robbery. For it is well

known that the mob at Kishineff was led by men of cultured society. But

cultivated society in Russia is really much worse than the people, who

are goaded by their sad life and blinded and enthralled by the

artificial darkness created around them.

“The cultivated classes are a crowd of cowardly slaves, without feeling

of personal dignity, ready to accept every lie to save their ease and

comfort; a weak and lawless element almost without conscience and

without shame, in spite of its elegant exterior. Cultivated society is

not less guilty of the disgraceful and horrible deeds committed at

Kishineff than the actual murderers and ravishers. Its members’ guilt

consists in the fact that not merely did they not protect the victims,

but that they rejoiced over the murders; it consists chiefly in

committing themselves for long years to be corrupted by man-haters and

persons who have long enjoyed the disgusting glory of being the lackeys

of power and the glorifiers of lies, like the editor of _Bessarabetz_ of

Kishineff and other publicists. These are the real authors of the

disgraceful and awful crime of Kishineff. To all the shameful names

hitherto given to these repulsive men must be added another, and the

well-deserved one, of ‘instigators of pillage and murder.’ These

hypocrites, with the name of God on their lips, who preach in Russian

society hatred of the Jews, Armenians, and Finns, to-day heap base and

cowardly calumnies upon the corpses of those killed through their

influence, and they shamelessly continue their hateful work of poisoning

the mind and feeling of the weak-willed Russian society.

“Shame upon their wicked heads! May the fire of conscience consume their

decayed hearts, covetous only of lackey-like honours and slavishly

obsequious to power!

“It is now the duty of Russian society that is not yet wholly ruined by

these bandits, to prove that it is not identified with these instigators

of pillage and murder. Russian society must clear its conscience of part

of the shame and disgrace by helping the orphaned and desolated Jews and

assisting these members of the race which has given to the world many

really great men and which still continues to produce teachers of truth

and beauty in spite of its oppressed condition in the world.

“Come, therefore, all who do not want themselves to be regarded as the

lackeys of the lackeys, and who still retain their self-respect; come

and help the Jews!”

APPENDIX IV

FATHER JOHN OF KRONSTADT RECANTS

A Reuter’s telegram from St. Petersburg dated the 13th of June, stated:

“The famous Orthodox priest, Father John of Kronstadt, whose fiery

condemnation of the Kishineff massacre was published in a Liberal

newspaper of St. Petersburg, has published the following statement in

the anti-Semitic journal _Znamya_, the new St. Petersburg organ of M.

Kroushevan, formerly editor of the _Bessarabetz_:

“To my beloved brethren of Christ in Kishineff: From the newspaper

accounts that followed those first published about the Kishineff

catastrophe, I have come to the conclusion that the Jews themselves

were the cause of those disorders and the wounds inflicted and the

murders committed on April 6 and 7 [old style]. I have arrived at the

conclusion that it is the Christians who have suffered in the end, and

that the Jews have been doubly repaid for their losses and injuries by

their own brethren and others. I know this from letters which I have

received from my people, who have lived for a long time in Kishineff who

are well acquainted with the state of things there, and who are most

trustworthy. Therefore I say to Kishineff Christians, forgive the

reproach which I cast upon you alone on account of the horrors

perpetrated. From letters of eye-witnesses I am convinced that one

cannot lay all the blame upon the Christians, who were incited to the

disorders by the Jews, and that the latter are mainly responsible for

the catastrophe.”

No Russian newspaper of any influence, with the exception of the _Novoye

Vremya_, has attempted to palliate the massacre, or to lay the blame for

it on the Jews.

APPENDIX V

Simon of Trent, from an article of Dr. Bloch in the

_Oesterreichische Wochenschrift_, No. 42, October the 20th, 1899.

(Freely translated.)

SIMON OF TRENT

The case of the alleged ritual murder of the child Simon of Trent is the

most important example of its kind, and is therefore frequently quoted

by anti-Semites. I have given the history of the case in the

_Oesterreichische Wochenschrift_. The Vienna _Vaterland_ of the 17th

October, and Pastor Deckert in the _Deutsches Volksblatt_ discuss my

articles, but carefully avoid mentioning the _Oesterreichische

Wochenschrift_. In May, 1893, the Vienna _Vaterland_ was obliged to

publish several articles from my pen, contradicting the statements made

by Pastor Deckert. In an article of May the 30th, 1893, I called

attention to a fact which throws a glaring light upon the history of the

case: Some days before the murder of the child, during the Easter week

of 1475, Bernardinus de Feltre, whilst preaching in Trent against the

Jews, expressed himself to the following effect: “And with these cursed

Jews you are on a friendly footing? You say, although without the true

faith, they are good people? But I tell you that even before the Easter

will have come to an end they will have given you a proof of their

kindness.” (_Cf._ Wadding, “Annales Minorum,” XIV. p. 132). Bernardinus

thus predicted the murder days before it happened. His prophecy was

naturally fulfilled. On Thursday in Passion Week, March the 23d, Simon,

the 28-months’-old son of the tanner Andreas, disappeared. Bernardinus

accused the Jews, and on Saturday the body of a child was discovered in

the house of Samuel. The Jews themselves informed the Bishop Hinderbach,

in consequence of which information all of them, including women and

children, were imprisoned.

In his article of the 17th of October, Pastor Deckert maintains that:

“It is not true that the confessions made by the Jews were obtained by

means of torture, and that they had been tortured whilst there were

absolutely no indications of their guilt.” Pastor Deckert is right.

There were proofs against them, proofs of a very extraordinary nature.

As soon as the bishop saw the body of the child he exclaimed: “This is

the work of the Jews!” (Acta Sanc., II., March 24, p. 497), and swore to

have revenge. He entrusted the prefect of the town, Johann de Salis,

with the conduct of the action. The latter put the richest Jews to (an

ordeal?) trial, and the wounds having begun to bleed as soon as the Jews

approached the body, which is always the case, as experience teaches

(experientia compertum est), when a murderer approaches his victim, this

fact was a convincing proof of the guilt of the Jews. There was also

another “proof” against the Jews. In the prison of Trent a converted

Jewish criminal, Johann de Feltre, was detained. By accusing his former

coreligionists he could hope for freedom; and he became a witness, ready

to say anything and everything against the Jews. Pastor Deckert

maintains that “it is not true that the confessions of the Jews were

obtained in consequence of tortures only.”

I have refuted his statement with his own words. On p. 21 of his article

he himself states: “_only torture could make them confess; without

tortures they would have confessed nothing_.” The Jews were submitted

for several days to the most inhuman tortures, and only then

_confessed_. This is proved by the contents of the letters of the Bishop

addressed to the Pope: “The accused Jews have been tortured for several

days (per pluries dies torti et interrogati), but have confessed

nothing”; and in another place the Bishop writes: “Although much has

been done against the Jews, a fortnight has passed without any result.”

Had the prisoners confessed at the first, second, or third application,

the official would not have employed so many variations of torture. _All

the alleged confessions had therefore been obtained by means of terror

and tortures of the most cruel character._

The sufferings of the martyrs are related in the letters of the Bishop

addressed to the Pope:

“On the 30th day of March (Vienna Acts, fol. 51) Samuel was ‘examined’

for the first time; he was, however, sent back to prison to ‘recover’

(animum repetendi), which term means in judicial language that he had

_fainted_. On the following day (March 31st) he was undressed, and with

his feet and hands tied, hoisted up on a rope and kept suspended in the

air, his limbs being thus turned out of their joints. As, however, he

still persisted in maintaining his innocence, he received ‘una

cavaletta’ (a leap), in other words, he was quickly lowered and pulled

up again; then the cord on which he was suspended was ‘touched,’ _i.

e._, _beaten_, and he was made to ‘leap’ several times. The victim

having swooned, the torture ceased. It was continued, with several

variations of exquisite cruelty, on the 3d of April.

On the 4th day (April the 7th) the procedure was resumed; and as the

victim exclaimed: “If I were to confess my guilt, I would only be

telling a lie,” _a wooden peg was attached to his leg, whilst he

remained suspended in the air_, thus considerably augmenting the pain.

Then a _pan filled with fire and brimstone was held to his nose_.

He still maintained his innocence, until at last, mad with pain and

suffering, he _confessed_ that he and Tobias had _strangled_ the boy.

This admission, clearly contradicting the blood accusation, was all that

could be obtained from him. Samuel was kept imprisoned for two months

(up to June the 7th) whilst the other Jews were being “examined.”

Evidently Samuel must have retracted his confession of the 8th of April,

as the following excerpt from the Acts will show:

WEDNESDAY, June the 7th, in the torture chamber.

Invited to speak the truth and informed that all his companions had

confessed their guilt, he replied that if they had done so they had told

a lie. The prefect of the town having been informed that the drinking of

holy water made criminals confess their guilt, Samuel was made to drink

a spoonful of consecrated water.

He persisted, however, in maintaining his innocence. Then two hot boiled

eggs were put under his shoulder-blades. Asked to speak the truth, he

promised to do so, but in presence of the prefect and the captain of the

town only. Left alone with these two gentlemen, he asked them to promise

him, “that he would only (!) be burnt and not have to die any other

death.” That is the manner in which he was made to _confess_ his guilt.

In spite of his mad self-accusations he was asked again to tell “_the

truth better still_” (Interrogates, quod melius dicat veritatem, minante

eidam Samueli, quod si non dicat veritatem, ponetur ad cordam. Qui

Samuel respondit, quod vult dicere veritatem, quia ex quo confessus est

mortem pueri, vult confiteri aliqua), and was threatened with new

tortures. On the 21st of June he was burnt alive. All the other victims

were treated in the same manner, even those who had accepted baptism.

Israel, son of Mohar of Brandenburg, was arrested on the 27th of March,

tortured from the 12th to the 21st of April, and having expressed the

wish to be baptised was freed. On the 26th of October, however, he was

again arrested, tortured several times, and killed on the wheel on the

19th of January. This sentence was due to the fact of his having given

evidence before the Papal Legate, the Bishop of Ventimiglia at Roveredo,

relating to the “examination” of the accused. In No. 128 of the Vienna

_Vaterland_ (May the 10th, 1893) I proved that the Duke and the Council

of Venice sent two eminent “jurisconsults” from Padua to Trent to

investigate the manner in which the accused were examined. The learned

doctors were maltreated by the mob. An “Apostolic note” issued by Pope

Sixtus IV., on the 10th of October, 1475, prohibits, under punishment of

excommunication, the claim that the child Simon of Trent was a martyr.

It is not proved, says the “note” that the child Simon had been murdered

by the Jews (nihil adhuc certum compertumve nostro judicio aut

approbatum de quodam puero Simone Tridentino per Judæos, ut dicitur,

interfecto). The Pope appointed the Legate, Bishop of Ventimiglia,

Giovanni dei Giudici, to investigate the case. The investigation took

place at Roveredo, in 1476, and the innocence of the Jews was proved. An

Zelinus, a citizen of Trent, proved that a certain Swiss, Zanesus,

living in Trent, and an enemy of the Jews, was the actual murderer of

the child. That the Papal Legate had clearly established the innocence

of the Jews is manifest by the acts of the case, dated: October the 20th

and 29th, and November 2d, 1475, and April 3d, 1476.

It was natural, therefore, that with regard to this case Pope Paul III.,

in a Bull of May the 12th, 1540, declared the blood accusations to be

nothing but the result of hatred and envy, and of covetousness due to a

desire to seize and appropriate the possessions of the Jews. The Bull

further prohibits, under the severest punishment of the Church, the

revival of such accusations in the future.

INTERPELLATION ADDRESSED BY DR. BYK, DR. RAPPOPORT, AND COLLEAGUES

TO HIS EXCELLENCY, THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, VIENNA.

The false and terrible accusation that the Jews require blood of

Christians for their religious rites and ceremonies has been

systematically disseminated, for the last few months, all over Austria.

The immediate cause of the movement was the Polna case of the murder of

Agnes Hruza. A Jew has been accused of the crime, but although his guilt

has not yet been proved, the circumstance has been used by a prejudiced

party, hostile to the Jews, and ritual murder suggested. At the trial

the public prosecutor, representing the government, public morality, and

the law, placed himself under the influence of that accusation by the

use of the words, “the well-known motives of the crime.” The president

of the court found no words of protest against the blood legend, which

was made use of, in presence of an excited crowd, for party purposes.

Although there was no ground and no corroboration for the accusation,

the belief gained popularity, thanks to the attitude of these organs of

justice. That the unrestrained spread of such a terrible accusation must

bring about disastrous consequences, is self-evident. No law and no

power are strong enough to protect those who require the blood of

innocent human victims for their religious rites. The whole extent of

the danger was perceived centuries ago, and Popes and temporal

(non-religious) rulers, especially kings of Poland, strongly prohibited

the raising and spread of the false accusation. This was done by the

Popes: Innocent IV. (in the “Bulls” of May the 28th, 1247; July the 5th,

1247; and September the 22d, 1258); Gregory X. (October the 7th, 1272);

Martin V. (February the 20th, 1422); Michael V. (November the 5th,

1447); Paul III. (May the 12th, 1540); who, availing themselves of their

fullest authority, most emphatically, and under pain of the severest

punishment of the Church, forbade the Christians to raise blood

accusations against the Jews. The example of the Popes was followed by

the kings of Poland: Jan Albrecht in his edict of 1496; Zygmunt I.,

1514; Zygmunt II., August, 1548; Stephen Batory, 1576 and 1580; Zygmunt

III., 1592; Wladystan IV., 1663; Jan Kazimir, 1694; Michael I., 1696;

August II., 1763; August III., 1763, and Stanislaus August, 1765;

commanded eternal silence (æternum silentium) in regard to the calumny

of the blood accusation, under the penalty of “pœna talionis.” In

Bohemia, where the case of Huelsner occurred, the Kings Ottokar II.

(March 29th, 1254; and August 23d, 1268); Wenzel II. (1300); and

Ladislav IV. (May the 15th, 1454), issued similar decrees. In other

countries special laws, relating to the blood accusation, have been

enacted. The condition of the present Austrian legislation makes the

promulgation of special laws unnecessary. Unfortunately, however, the

law is powerless against the extravagant excesses of the press; and thus

daily, in various languages, the legend of the ritual murder is spread

among all classes of society.

In the face of the above facts, we beg to submit the following

questions:

(a) Is your Excellency aware of the existing evil?

(b) What measures does your Excellency propose to take, with a view to

put an end to it?

Dr. Byk, Dr. Rappoport, Piepes-Poratynski, Dr. Rosenstock, Dr.

Trachtenberg, Dr. Kolischer, Yaworski, Bilinski, Dziednszycki, Gorski,

David Abrahamovicz, Dielemba, Struszkiewicz, Gizowski, Moysa, Wladimir

Gniewosz, Bogdanowicz, Pientak, Milewski, Dr. Walewski, Ratowski,

Lewicki, Roszkowski, Henzel, Popowski, Weigel, Kareis, Auspitz,

Straucher, Tittinger, Sokolowski.

POPE INNOCENT IV. (5th July, 1247).

_To the Archbishops and Bishops of Germany._

We have received a pitiable complaint from the Jews of Germany. They say

that some nobles, lay and ecclesiastical, and other powerful and notable

men within your cities and dioceses, designing to seize and usurp their

goods unjustly, devise against them impious counsels and invent diverse

pretexts. Without considering that testimonies to the Christian Faith

have proceeded from their records and that the Sacred Scripture among

other precepts of the Law says: “Thou shalt not kill,” and forbids them

at their Passover ceremonies to touch any dead flesh, they falsely

accuse the Jews of using in these same ceremonies the body of a murdered

child, thinking that the said practice is required by their Law, whereas

it is clearly contrary to their Law. And they cast upon the Jews, with

malicious intent, any corpse that by chance is discovered at any place.

Attacking them with these and other inventions, and without formal

accusation, confession or conviction, and in despite of the privileges

conceded to the Jews by the clemency of the Holy See, they despoil them

of their goods (contrary to the law of God and to justice), and they

visit them with hunger, imprisonment, and so many calamities and

afflictions, punishing them with diverse punishments (even condemning

many of them to shameful death) that the Jews, living under the rule of

the said princes, notables, and powerful men in worse plight than were

their fathers under Pharaoh in Egypt, are compelled to leave places

where they and their ancestors have dwelt from time immemorial. Hence,

in fear of extermination, they have thought it necessary to have

recourse to the protection of the Holy See. Now, therefore, being

unwilling that the Jews should be unjustly harassed (for God in his

mercy awaits their conversion, seeing that, on the testimony of the

Prophet, it is believed that the remnant of them is destined to be

saved), we order that you show yourselves favourable and well disposed

to them, and whenever you find any violent attempt made against them,

with respect to the matters mentioned above, by the prelates, nobles,

and powerful men aforesaid, you shall see that the matter is treated

according to law, and shall not in future permit the Jews to be

improperly molested on these or similar charges by any persons

whatever. Those who molest them you shall summarily restrain by your

ecclesiastical censure.

POPE INNOCENT IV. (1247).

_To the Archbishop of Vienna._

Divine justice has not cast down the Jewish people without preserving

the remnant of them for salvation. Therefore, it is an act of zeal that

deserves no commendation, or of cruelty that is worthy of detestation,

when Christians, either through greed for wealth or thirst for blood

(disregarding the merciful nature of the Christian Church, which allows

the Jews to live in its midst and to practise their own rites), plunder,

torture, and slay them without trial. Now, the Jews living within your

province have lately brought before the Holy See a pitiable complaint.

They say that certain prelates and nobles of the province, desirous of

having a pretext for cruelty towards them, have accused them of the

death of a girl who is said to have been found secretly murdered near

Valréas, that they have inhumanly committed some of them to the flames

without legal trial or confession, while they have despoiled others of

all their possessions and driven them away, and that--against the wont

of the Mother who, herself free, brings forth children that they may be

children of freedom--they have compelled their children to be baptised

against their will. Now, since we are unwilling to tolerate such

things--as, indeed, we could not do without transgressing the will of

God--we hereby command you to deal according to law with such attacks on

the Jews, of the nature that has been described above, as are made by

bishops, nobles, and rulers. You shall not permit the Jews to be

unjustly ill-treated on these or similar grounds, and you shall restrain

the evil-doers by the summary use of ecclesiastical censures.

POPE INNOCENT IV. (25th September, 1253).

Moreover, in order to counteract the wickedness and greed of evil men,

we decree that no one shall harm, or trespass on, the cemeteries of the

Jews, or shall dig up dead bodies to obtain money, or shall charge them

with using human blood in their ceremonies. Though they are ordered in

the Old Testament to use no blood at all--not to mention human

blood--yet many Jews have been killed at Fulda and in many other places

on suspicion of having used human blood. By the authority of these

presents we strictly forbid such actions in the future. If any man,

having become acquainted with the purport of this decree, contravenes

it--we pray that such a thing may not happen--let him be exposed to the

danger of losing his office or rank, or let him be punished by

excommunication, unless he makes suitable amends for his presumption;

but we wish this protection of ours to be given only to those who use

no devices for the subversion of the Christian faith.

POPE GREGORY X. (7th October, 1272).

Since Jews cannot bear testimony against Christians, we decree that the

testimony of Christians against Jews shall be of no avail unless there

is a Jew bearing testimony among them. For it sometimes happens that

Christians lose their children, and Jews are charged by their enemies

with taking them away and killing them and using their hearts and blood

for religious purposes; the fathers of the children, or other

Christians, in hatred of the Jews, hide the children away, so that they

may cause trouble to the Jews and gain money from them for relieving

them from their trouble, and in order that they may most falsely assert

that the Jews have secretly stolen and murdered the children and that

they use the blood for religious purposes, whereas their law strictly

forbids them to use blood for ceremonial purposes, or to taste it, or

to eat the flesh of animals with cloven hoofs, as has been many times

demonstrated at our court by Jews converted to the Christian faith. On

charges of this kind Jews have often been seized and imprisoned

unjustly. We decree that in such cases the testimony of Christians

against Jews shall not be admitted; that Jews imprisoned on this empty

charge shall be liberated; that they be not imprisoned in future on this

empty charge unless (which we cannot believe) they are found in the act.

(Signed by the Pope, four cardinals, and two bishops).

POPE MARTIN V. (20th February, 1422).

It sometimes happens that many Christians, in order that they may extort

money from the said Jews and deprive them of their goods and substance

and cause them to be killed, invent pretexts and assert (at times of

plague and other calamities) that the Jews have poisoned the wells and

mixed human blood with their unleavened bread: they say that it is in

consequence of these crimes, which they unjustly ascribe to the Jews,

that the calamities are caused. Hence the population is moved against

the Jews and massacres them and persecutes and afflicts them in many

ways.

POPE NICHOLAS V. (1447).

Some persons have ventured to make the untruthful assertion that the

Jews are unable to celebrate certain of their festivals without using

the liver or heart of a Christian.

POPE PAUL III. (12th May, 1550).

_To the Clergy of Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland._

We have heard with displeasure, through the complaints of the Jews in

your parts, that various ... towns, nobles, and powerful men among you,

being jealous of the Jews and hostile to them, and blinded by hatred and

envy, or, as is more probable, by greed, and wishing to have a pretext

for depriving them of their goods, falsely charge them with slaying your

children and drinking their blood, and committing many other horrible

crimes specially directed against our faith. Thus they attempt to arouse

the feelings of simple Christians against the Jews, and it often results

that the Jews are not only robbed of their property, but are even

murdered.

THE END

* * * * *

_A NOTABLE BIOGRAPHY_

RECOLLECTIONS

PERSONAL AND LITERARY

BY

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD

(EDITED BY RIPLEY HITCHCOCK)

With a preface by

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN

Illustrated. 12mo., cloth, Price, $1.50 net.

_Large Paper Edition, limited to 200 copies, extra illustrated.

Printed on Japan paper, uncut, price $7 50 net._

Mr. Stoddard was the last survivor of the time which has been called the

Golden Age of American Letters. His meetings with Edgar Allan Poe, and

their curious ending, his visits to Hawthorne, and Hawthorne’s kindly

counsel, his talks with Thackeray, his literary discussions before

Lowell’s study fire, Boker’s frank comments upon the contemporary

theatre, his golden nights with Bayard Taylor are among the pictures

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writer’s dry humor and quaint originality of expression impart an added

charm to the most notable literary autobiography of recent years.

* * * * *

_A REMARKABLE NOVEL_

TENNESSEE TODD

A Dramatic Story of Steamboat Life on the Mississippi

BY

G. W. OGDEN

12mo. with frontispiece, cloth, Price, $1.50

Not since the time when Mark Twain immortalized the Mississippi in Tom

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with those inimitable portraits. But at last, a man who knows the life

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steamboat days during the years when the first railroad between St.

Louis and New Orleans was wresting supremacy from the river.

TENNESSEE TODD is the story of that fight between the steamboat and the

railroad, between the old order and the new, between the men who had

carried on warfare with the treacherous stream until they had become its

controllers, and the new men which the inevitable advance of commerce

brought with capital and brains to usurp the power and break the pride

of the men of the Mississippi.

* * * * *

_A GREAT FIRST NOVEL_

THE CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE

The Story of a New Battle on Old Fields

BY

BALDWIN SEARS

12mo. cloth, Price $1.50

A novel of extraordinary power, dealing with the absorbing social and

political questions of the South which confront America to-day no less

than they confronted the government before and immediately after the

Civil War, in a different, though equally threatening, form.

With sympathy, humor and strength, the life and problems of to-day in

one section of the South--which may be taken as representative of many

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been done in any American novel. As the work of an entirely new author,

it will attract immediate attention for its remarkable literary quality

and its comprehensive grasp of a broad social and political motive.

* * * * *

_A STORY OF THE LAKES_

HIS LITTLE WORLD

THE STORY OF HUNCH BADEAU

BY

SAMUEL MERWIN

Author of “The Road to Frontenac,” joint-author of “Calumet K” etc.

12 mo. cloth. Illustrated. $1.25

This is the story of a man. Whether driving his schooner through a lake

storm, or quelling a lumber-yard mutiny, or sacrificing his love for the

sake of a friend, Hunch Badeau is every inch a man.

He doesn’t preach, but unconsciously, and prompted simply by the bigness

of his heart, he exemplifies a nobility which does the reader good. Many

things happen in this story. Readers will like and they will remember

Hunch Badeau.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Observation No. 6418, “Code of Laws,” Vol. VIII.

[2] See Appendix

[3] These letters are republished by the willing permission of Mr.

W. R. Hearst, for whose papers they were written from Kishineff and

elsewhere. They have, of course, undergone a necessary revision.

It is believed that by including these letters as they were originally

written, with only such changes as were necessary to a permanent

form, a more vivid realisation of the scenes of the tragedy has been

afforded than would have been possible if their facts alone had been

incorporated with the body of the narrative.

[4] See Appendix.

[5] See M. de Plehve’s version.

[6] _The London Times_, June 26, 1903.

[7] See Letter IV.

[8] See Letter IV.

[9] “Government officials” here would stand for telegraph messengers,

or employés of other departments.--M. D.