Page:John Feoktist Dudikoff - Beasts in Cassocks (1924).djvu/146

 nity of people of this denomination, who strive to a firm upbuilding of Russia and respect the laws of this country.

The described September the 17th debauch had been performed by violators who dared to raise their hand against a clargyman and even threatening to use a ready weapon.

It is impossible to destroy the compromising book and thus corrode the persons described therein: a multitude of thousands of workingmen and other witnesses demand justice and a public trial, while the Jews also demand a clearing up of the grave threats of massacres against their race at this criminal attack and debauch.

It is a tremendous scandal. Of course, for what had occurred will, first of all, be held responsible a part of the guilty ones, insofar as this vanguard of the tireless, fumigating riot proceeded along the lines of action at the described moment; and thereafter, when the trial will disclose the main cause which had provoked this ugly brawl, then will by itself be revealed the grounds which compelled to make the experiment in writing this sorrowful book. It is positively known that once upon a time Dudikoff even took an oath in a church that he would be discreet and careful in publishing things he had seen with his own eyes and, in this respect, he would have to treat actual, concrete matters as non-existing ones. For this, confidence has been shown to him and he had been promised an enviable career.

But all this, nevertheless, was a terrible scoffiing at sacred things, which is so characteristic of persons who badly need an insurance-cover for their very non-transparent possibilities in applying in advance their methods of scaring and extracting extorting obligations. It is therefore sheer short-sightedness and unwise to destroy by pogrom-methods a book, which chiefly concerns those who are indignant against it. It is no use. The law of moral compensation is still in existence; its rays illuminate far and penetrate into human affairs. It is a thousand times not the matter with the book, nor with its modest author, with his confirming name, but rather with those people who furnished hte exclusive material for its contents, treating (one word illegible—translator) shameful for all moral fundamentals and the people enumerated therein without any zealous veal.

In the first place, it is positively known to me that a reproduction of Dudikoff's book may now easily be found in the Synod of Berlin, Paris, London, Rome and everywhere in the entire wide zone of the Russian settling. Apparenlty, "Habeat libelli sua fata."