The intoxicated, half-illiterate _moujiks_ would sign a "verdict" demanding the expulsion of the Jews from their village; the verdict would be promptly confirmed by the governors and would immediately become law.
Such expulsions were particularly frequent in the governments under the jurisdiction of Drenteln, governor-general of Kiev, and no one doubted but that this ferocious Jew-baiter had passed the word to that effect throughout his dominions.
[Footnote 1: Literally "Fists."] The economic misery within the Pale drove a number of Jews into the Russian interior, but here they were met by the whip of the law, made doubly painful by the scorpions of administrative caprice.

Wholesale expulsions of Jews took place in St.Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov, and other forbidden centers.

The effect of these expulsions upon the commercial life of the country was so disastrous that the big Russian merchants of Moscow and Kharkov appealed to the Government to relax the restrictions surrounding the visits of Jews to these cities.
The civil authorities were now joined by the military powers in hounding the Jews.

There were in the Russian army a large number of Jewish physicians, many of whom had distinguished themselves during the preceding Russo-Turkish war.

The reactionary Government at the helm of Russian affairs could not tolerate the sight of a Jewish physician exercising the rights of an army officer which were otherwise utterly utterly unattainable for a Jewish soldier.