ry service. The
only son of a family was exempt, and certain others. In the physical
examination preceding conscription, many were rejected on account of
various faults. This gave the people the idea of inflicting injuries
on themselves, so as to produce temporary deformities on account of
which they might be rejected at the examination. Men would submit to
operations on their eyes, ears, or limbs, which caused them horrible
sufferings, in the hope of escaping the service. If the operation was
successful, the patient was rejected by the examining officers, and in
a short time he was well, and a free man. Often, however, the
deformity intended to be temporary proved incurable, so that there
were many men in Polotzk blind of one eye, or hard of hearing, or
lame, as a result of these secret practices; but these things were
easier to bear than the memory of four years in the Czar's service.

Sons of rich fathers could escape service without leaving any marks on
their persons. It was always possible to bribe conscription officers.
This was a dangerous practice,--it was not the officers who suffered
most in case the negotiations leaked out,--but no respectable family
would let a son be taken as a recruit till it had made every effort to
save him. My grandfather nearly ruined himself to buy his sons out of
service; and my mother tells thrilling anecdotes of her younger
brother's life, who for years lived in hiding, under assumed names and
in various disguises, till he had passed the age of liability for
service.

If it were cowardice that made the Jews shrink from military service
they would not inflict on themselves physical tortures greater than
any that threatened them in the army, and which often left them maimed
for life. If it were avarice--the fear of losing the gains from their
business for four years--they would not empty their pockets and sell
their houses and sink into debt, on the chance of successfully bribing
the Czar's agents. The Jewish recruit dreaded, indeed, brutality and
injustice at the hands of officers and comrades; he feared for his
family, which he left, often enough, as dependents on the charity of
relatives; but the fear of an unholy life was greater than all other
fears. I know, for I remember my cousin who was taken as a soldier.
Everything had been done to save him. Money had been spent freely--my
uncle did not stop at his unmarried daughter's portion, when
everything else was gone. My cousin ha