entrusted to his command.”  Simultaneously considerable foresight was displayed in instructing the grand duke to wait with the expulsion of the Jews “until the conclusion of the military conscription going on at present.”  Evidently there was some fear of disorders and complications.  It was thought wiser to seize the children for the army first and then to expel the parents—­to get hold of the young birds and then to destroy the nest.

[Footnote 1:  It may be remarked here that the principal enactments of that period, down to 1835, were, drafted in their preliminary stage by the “Jewish Committee” established in 1823.  See Vol.  I, p. 407 et seq.]

[Footnote 2:  Commander-in-Chief of the former Polish provinces.  See p. 16, n. 2.]

The expulsion from Kiev was of a different order.  It marked the beginning of a new system, the narrowing down of the urban area allotted to the Jews within the Pale of Settlement.  Since 1794 [1] the Jews had been allowed to settle in Kiev freely.  They had formed there, with official sanction, an important community and had vastly developed commerce and industry.  Suddenly, however, the Government discovered that “their presence is detrimental to the industry of this city and to the exchequer in general, and is, moreover, at variance with the rights and privileges conferred at different periods upon the city of Kiev.”  The discovery was followed by a grim rescript from St. Petersburg, forbidding not only the further settlement of Jews in Kiev but also prescribing that even those settled there long ago should leave the city within one year, those owning immovable property within two years.  Henceforward only the temporary sojourn of Jews, for a period not exceeding six months, was to be permitted and to be limited, moreover, to merchants of the first two guilds who arrive “in connection with contracts and fairs” or to attend to public bids and deliveries.

[Footnote 1:  See Vol.  I, p. 317.]

In 1829 the whip of expulsion cracked over the backs of the Jews dwelling on the shores of the Baltic and the Black Sea.  In Courland and Livonia measures were taken “looking to the reduction of the number of Jews” which had been considerably swelled by the influx of “newcomers”—­of Jews not born in those provinces and therefore having no right to settle there.  The Tzar endorsed the proposal of the “Jewish Committee” to transfer from Courland all Jews not born there into the cities in which their birth was registered.  Those not yet registered in a municipality outside the province were granted a half-year’s respite for that purpose.  If within the prescribed term they failed to attend to their registration, they were to be sent to the army, or, in case of unfitness for military service, deported to Siberia.