defendants, and were made to listen to continuous accusations against
the Jews, which the; were constantly forced to deny. Altogether there
were sixteen such commissions: one in each of the fifteen governments of
the Pale of Settlement--exclusive of the Kingdom of Poland--and one in
the government of Kharkov. The commissions were granted a term of two
months within which to complete their labors and present the results to
the Minister.

The sessions of all these "gubernatorial commissions" [1] took place
simultaneously during the months of September and October.

[Footnote 1: In Russian, _Gubernskiya Kommissit_, literally, "Government
Commissions," using "Government" in the sense of "Province."]

The prisoner at the bar was the Jewish people which was tried on the
charges contained in the official bill of indictment--the imperial ukase
as supplemented and interpreted in the ministerial circular. A
well-informed contemporary gives the following description of these
sessions in an official memorandum:

The first session of each commission began with the reading of the
ministerial circular of August 25. The reading invariably produced a
strong effect in two different directions: on the members from among
the peasantry and on those from among the Jews. The former became
convinced of the hostile attitude of the Government towards the
Jewish population and of their leniency towards the instigators of
the disorders, which, according to an assertion made in Ignatyev's
circular, were due exclusively to the Jewish exploitation of the
original inhabitants. Needless to say, the peasants did not fail to
communicate this conviction, which was strengthened at the