ements, the devastating flash,
the furious wind; appalling is the destruction of the roaring flames,
the all-devouring flood; but what elements can measure their forces with
the fury of man, once he has torn asunder the bonds of reason and rushes
madly and irresistibly onwards toward the accomplishment of his
passionate desires.

"Gefaehrlich ist's den Leu zu wecken,
Verderblich ist des Tigers Zahn;
Jedoch das schrecklichste der Schrecken,
Das ist der Mensch in seinem Wahn."

The animosity of the Russians towards the Jews had not ceased, it had
only been held in check for a final onslaught. The unfortunate year 1881
dawned upon the Hebrews. Its beginning found them hopeful, and confident
that for the future trouble would be averted; its close left them the
victims of a cruel and relentless persecution. We would gladly spare the
reader the harrowing details of this most atrocious of outbreaks, but we
must follow the fortunes of our friends to the end.

The meagre statements which found their way into our newspapers merely
announced that riots against the Jews had occurred here and there, but
were of so general a nature that they failed to impress the imagination.
They never evoked pictures of the terrible scenes which actually
occurred: men murdered, women outraged, infants butchered--arson,
pillage, slaughter and lust combined.

The ceaseless workings and writings of Mikail and other members of his
commission, had gradually aroused the fury of the masses. Their
utterances were not only repeated in every _kretschma_, but were grossly
exaggerated. Professional agitators, who had nothing to lose and
everything to gain by promoting a race quarrel, were actively at work
among the people, keeping alive the flame of hatred which they had taken
such pains to kindle.

Elizabethgrad, a large city to the south of Kief, containing ten
thousand Jews, was their first point of attack. Weeks before the event,
proclamations were posted throughout the district, calling upon the
inhabitants to throw off the yoke of the Jews and fixing Wednesday,
April 27th, as the day for the general uprising. Copies of a fictitious
_ukase_, commanding that the property of the Jews be confiscated and
handed over to the Christians, were freely circulated and universally
accepted as emanating from the Czar. Every lying accusation which had
ever been employed against the Jews since the rise of Christianity was
unearthed and used with telli