Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/54

42 Russians, dating from a thousand years back, persists even here. The peasants have no dealings with the Jews, and it is only recently that the Jews have been placed on the same footing as the other citizens. Nevertheless, even in 1794, when despair armed Warsaw against Russia, they took part in the national defence; a regiment of Jewish volunteers fought under Kosciusko's banners, led by the Jewish, who in 1809 fell fighting against the Austrians. In 1830 the same prejudiced and irresolute national government, which rejected the aid of the peasants, and would have nothing to do with the revolt in the old Polish provinces, rejected the applications of the Jews to be allowed to enter the army instead of paying for exemption as formerly. When the rebellion was suppressed, Nicholas punished them for this application by incorporating them with his own army, and that was not enough. Since the Jews had also asked the national government for permission to share in the higher and lower general instruction of the people, the Tzar declared that for the future he would take care of their education. He caused 36,000 Jewish families to be taken across the frontier, "in order to remove the temptation to smuggle," as it was said, and ordered them to settle on the steppes of Southern Russia and cultivate the soil there. The Cossacks came with the order of expulsion. All furniture was thrown out into the street, old men, women, small children, exhausted and famished, were obliged to drag themselves away to the place of destination. If a woman sank down fainting by the way, the husband had to go on notwithstanding. And at the new place of abode the exiles were crushed by the most severe of punishments: child-conscription. In the great raids of 1842 all the small boys of six years and upwards were seized and sent under Cossack guards to Archangel to be brought up as sailors. Of course they died like flies on the way.

Common misfortune has united the Polish Jews to their Christian fellow-countrymen. For the other Poles have also been compelled to endure the loss of their children. An order from of March 24, 1832, which was executed, began thus: "It has pleased his Majesty the