emphatically against the hideous scenes which had been disgracing the
capital of Poland. The archbishop of Warsaw acted similarly, and the
Catholic priests frequently marched through the streets with crosses in
their hands, admonishing the crowds to disperse. It is interesting to
note that, while the pogrom was going on, the governor-general of Warsaw
refused to comply with the request of a number of Poles, who applied for
permission to organize a civil guard, pledging themselves to restore
order in the city in one day. It would seem as if the official pogrom
ritual did not allow of the slightest modification. The disorders had to
proceed in accordance with the established routine, so as not to violate
the humane commandment: "Two days shalt thou plunder, and on the third
day shalt thou rest." Evidently some one had an interest in having the
capital of Poland repeat the experiment of Kiev and Odessa, and in
seeing to it that the "cultured Poles" should not fall behind the
Russian barbarians in order to convince Europe that the pogrom was not
exclusively a Russian manufacture.

As a matter of fact, the opposite result was attained. The revolting
events at Warsaw, which completed the pogrom cycle of 1881, made a much
stronger impression upon Europe and America than all the preceding
pogroms, for the reason that Warsaw stood in close commercial relations
with the West, and the havoc wrought there had an immediate effect upon
the European market.




CHAPTER XXIII