[Footnote 1:  Hertzen, a famous Russian writer (d. 1870), was exiled to the government of Vyatka for propagating liberal doctrines.]

  “Whom do you carry and to what place?”

“Well, sir, you see, they got together a bunch of these accursed Jewish youngsters between the age of eight and nine.  I suppose they are meant for the fleet, but how should I know?  At first the command was to drive them to Perm.  Now there is a change.  We are told to drive them to Kazan.  I have had them on my hands for a hundred versts or thereabouts.  The officer that turned them over to me told me they were an awful nuisance.  A third of them remained on the road (at this the officer pointed with his finger to the ground).  Half of them will not get to their destination,” he added.

  “Epidemics, I suppose?”, I inquired, stirred to the very core.

“No, not exactly epidemics; but they just fall like flies.  Well, you know, these Jewish boys are so puny and delicate.  They can’t stand mixing dirt for ten hours, with dry biscuits to live on.  Again everywhere strange folks, no father, no mother, no caresses.  Well then, you just hear a cough and the youngster is dead.  Hello, corporal, get out the small fry!”

The little ones were assembled and arrayed in a military line.  It was one of the most terrible spectacles I have ever witnessed.  Poor, poor children!  The boys of twelve or thirteen managed somehow to stand up, but the little ones of eight and ten....  No brush, however black, could convey the terror of this scene on the canvas.

Pale, worn out, with scared looks, this is the way they stood in their uncomfortable, rough soldier uniforms, with their starched, turned-up collars, fixing an inexpressibly helpless and pitiful gaze upon the garrisoned soldiers, who were handling them rudely.  White lips, blue lines under the eyes betokened either fever or cold.  And these poor children, without care, without a caress, exposed to the wind which blows unhindered from the Arctic Ocean, were marching to their death.  I seized the officer’s hand, and, with the words:  “Take good care of them! “, threw myself into my carriage.  I felt like sobbing, and I knew I could not master myself....

The great Russian writer saw the Jewish cantonists on the road, but he knew nothing of what happened to them later on, in the recesses of the barracks into which they were driven.  This terrible secret was revealed to the world at a later period by the few survivors among these martyred Jewish children.

Having arrived at their destination, the juvenile conscripts were put into the cantonist battalions.  The “preparation for military service” began with their religious re-education at the hands of sergeants and corporals.  No means was, neglected so long as it bade fair to bring the children to the baptismal font.  The authorities refrained from giving formal instructions, leaving everything to the zeal of the officers who knew the wishes of their superiors.  The children were first sent for spiritual admonition to the local Greek-Orthodox priests, whose efforts, however, proved fruitless in nearly every case.  They were then taken in hand by the sergeants and corporals who adopted military methods of persuasion.