[Footnote 1:  Compare on the status of the burgher in Russian law Vol.  I, p. 308, n. 2.  Nearly all the higher estates were exempt.]

Der Ukas is arobgekumen auf judische Selner,
Seinen mir sich zulofen in die puste Waelder..... 
In alle puste Waelder seinen mir zulofen,
In puste Gruber seinen mir verlofen.....  Oi weih, oi weih!_....[1]

[Footnote 1: 

      When the ukase came down about Jewish soldiers,
      We all dispersed over the lonesome forests;
      Over the lonesome forests did we disperse,
      In lonesome pits did we hide ourselves....  Woe me, Woe!]

The recruiting agents hired by the Kahal or its “trustees,” who received the nickname “hunters” or “captors,” [1] hunted down the fugitives, trailing them everywhere and capturing them for the purpose of making up the shortage.  In default of a sufficient number of adults, little children, who were easier “catch,” were seized, often enough in violation of the provision of the law.  Even boys under the required age of twelve, sometimes no more than eight years old, were caught and offered as conscripts at the recruiting stations, their age being misstated. [2] The agents perpetrated incredible cruelties.  Houses were raided during the night, and children were torn from the arms of their mothers, or lured away and kidnapped.

[Footnote 1:  More literally “catchers”; in Yiddish Khappers.]

[Footnote 2:  This was the more easy, as regular birth-registers were not yet in existence.]

After being captured, the Jewish conscripts were sent into the recruiting jail where they were kept in confinement until their examination at the recruiting station.  The enlisted minors were turned over to a special officer to be dispatched to their places of destination, mostly in the Eastern provinces including Siberia.  For it must be noted that the cantonists were stationed almost to a man in the outlying Russian governments, where they could be brought up at a safe distance from all Jewish influences.  The unfortunate victims who were drafted into the army and deported to these far-off regions were mourned by their relatives as dead.  During the autumnal season, when the recruits were drafted and deported, the streets of the Jewish towns resounded with moans.  The juvenile cantonists were packed into wagons like so many sheep and carried off in batches under a military convoy.  When they took leave of their dear ones it was for a quarter of a century; in the case of children it was for a longer term, too often it was good-bye for life.

How these unfortunate youngsters were driven to their places of destination we learn from the description of Alexander Hertzen, [1] who chanced to meet a batch of Jewish cantonists on his involuntary journey through Vyatka, in 1835.  At one of the post stations in some God-forsaken village of the Vyatka government he met the escorting officer.  The following dialogue ensued between the two: