The Imperial Messenger is comforting the public by the announcement that it would in due time and at due length report all cases of excesses perpetrated upon the Jews.  One might think that these are every-day occurrences forming part of the natural course of events which demand nothing else than timely communication to the public.  Is there indeed no means to put a stop to this crying scandal?

Events soon made it clear that there was no desire to put a stop to this “scandal,” as the Moscow paper politely termed the exploits of the Russian robber bands.  The local authorities of Balta were forewarned in time of the approaching pogroms.  Beginning with the middle of March the people in Balta and the surrounding country were discussing them openly.  When the Jews of that town made their apprehensions known to the local police commissioner, they received from him an evasive reply.  In view of the fact that the Jewish population of Balta was three times as large as the Christian, it would not have been difficult for the Jews to organize some sort of self-defence.  But they knew that such an organization was strictly forbidden by the Government, and, realizing the consequences, they had to confine themselves to a secret agreement entered into by a few families to stand up for one another in the hour of distress.  On the second day of the Russian Easter, corresponding to the seventh day of the Jewish festival, on March 29, the pogrom began, surpassing by the savagery of the mob and the criminal conduct of the authorities all the bacchanalia of 1881.  A contemporary observer, basing his statements on the results of a special investigation, gives the following account of the events at Balta: 

At the beginning of the pogrom, the Jews got together and forced a band of rioters to draw back and seek shelter in the building of the fire department.  But when the police and soldiers appeared on the scene, the rioters decided to leave their place of refuge.  Instead of driving off the disorderly band, the police and soldiers began to beat the Jews with their rifle butts and swords.  This served as a signal to start the pogrom.  At that moment, somebody sounded an alarm bell, and, in response, the mob began to flock together.  Fearing the numerical superiority of the Jews in that part of the town, the crowd passed across the bridge to the so-called Turkish side, where there were fewer Jews.  The crowd was accompanied by the military commander, the police commissioner, the burgomaster, and a part of the local battalion, which fact, however, did not prevent the mob, while passing the Cathedral street, from demolishing a Jewish store and breaking the windows in the house of another Jew, a member of the town-council.  After the mob had crossed over to the Turkish side, the authorities drew up military cordons on all the three bridges leading from that side to the rest of the town, with the order not to allow any Jews to pass.  Needless