The Jews constitute only 4.05 per cent. of the population of the
Empire, but the proportion of Jews in the annual army contingent was
estimated, at the outbreak of the Japanese war, at 5.7 per cent. This
is due to the fact that a great many exemptions which the law provides
for non-Jews are made inapplicable to Jews. =In the army the Jews can
achieve no rank higher than that of corporal.= A penalty of 300 rubles
($150) is placed upon each Jewish defection, and the whole family,
including parents and relatives by marriage of the person accused, is
held responsible therefor.
The results of these repressions and persecutions are known.
Politically outlawed, socially and economically degraded, the
Jewish population imprisoned in the Pale has festered in misery.
The merchants have been obliged to resort to fearful competition.
Workingmen, overcrowding their industries, have been compelled to work
for starvation wages. Most of the Jewish homes in Russia are miserable
hovels, with little air or light. In the great cities, the proportion
of paupers approximates a fifth of the Jewish population. In Odessa
in 1900, of a population of 150,000 Jews no less than 48,500 were
supported by charity; 63 per cent. of the dead had pauper burials,
and a further 20 per cent. were buried at the lowest possible rate.
In the Governments of Ekaterinoslav, Bessarabia, Pietrikov, Chernigov
and Siedlets, the number of charity cases at the Passover festival
increased from 41.9 per cent. to 46.8 per cent. in four years.