There were rumors that the London petition threw the Tzar into a fury, and the future court annalist of Russia will probably tell of the scene that took place in the imperial palace when this document was read.

An indirect reply came through the cringing official press.

The mouthpiece of the Russian Government abroad, the newspaper _Le Nord_ in Brussels, which was especially engaged in the task of whitewashing the black politics of its employers, published an article under the heading "A Last Word concerning Semitism," in which the rancor of the highest Government circles in Russia found undisguised expression: The Semites--quoth the semi-official organ with an impudent disregard of truth--have never yet had such an easy life in Russia as they have at the present time, and yet they have never complained so bitterly.

There is a reason for it.

It is a peculiarity of Semitism: a Semite is never satisfied with anything; the more you give him the more he wishes to have.
In the evident desire to fool its readers, _Le Nord_ declared that the protesters at the London meeting might have saved themselves the trouble of demanding "religious liberty" for the Jews--which in the London petition was understood, of course, to imply civil liberty for the professors of Judaism--since nobody in Russia restricted the Jews in their worship.