command from St. Petersburg.  In 1817, as a result of the energetic representations of “the Deputies of the Jewish People,” [1] Sonnenberg and his fellow-workers, the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs, Golitzin, gave orders that the ukase which had just been issued by him, forbidding the arbitrary injection of a ritual element into criminal cases, be strictly enforced in the Kingdom of Poland.  This action saved the lives of scores of prisoners, and put a stop to the obscure agitation which endeavored to revive the medieval spectre.

[Footnote 1:  Compare Vol.  I, p. 394, and above, p. 74.]

The Polish Diet of 1818 reflected the same state of mind which had previously found expression in political literature:  an unmistakable preponderance of the anti-Jewish element.  Some of the deputies appealed to Alexander I. in their speeches and openly called upon him to give orders to lay before the next session of the Diet “a project of Jewish reform, with a view to saving Poland from the excessive growth of the Hebrew tribe, which now forms a seventh of all the inhabitants, and in a few years will surpass in numbers the Christian population of the country.”  For the immediate future the deputies recommend the enforcement of the suspended law barring the Jews from the liquor traffic [1] and their subjection to military conscription.

[Footnote 1:  Compare Vol.  I, p. 304, and above, p. 94.]

One might have thought that the Diet had no need of extra measures to “curb” the Jews.  It was quite enough that it tacitly sanctioned the prolongation of the ten years term of Jewish rightlessness which had been fixed by the Government of the Varsovian duchy in 1808. [1] This term ended in 1818, while the first Diet of the Kingdom of Poland was holding its sessions, but neither the Polish Diet nor the Polish Council of State gave any serious thought to the question whether the Government of the province had a right to prolong the disfranchisement of the Jews.  This right was taken for granted by the Polish legislators who were planning even harsher restrictions for the unloved tribe of Hebrews.

[Footnote 1:  Compare Vol.  I, p. 299.]

3.  ASSIMILATIONIST TENDENCIES AMONG THE JEWS OF POLAND

In the beginning of the third decade of the nineteenth century the noise caused by the Jewish question had begun to subside both in Polish political circles and in Polish literature.  Instead, the agitation within the Jewish ranks became more vigorous.  That group of Jews already assimilated or thirsting for assimilation, which on an earlier occasion, during the existence of the Varsovian duchy, had segregated itself from the rest of Jewry, assuming the label of “Old Testament believers,” [1] occupied a very influential position within the Jewish community of the Polish capital.  It was made up of wealthy bankers and merchants and boasted of a few men with a European education.  The members of this group