The subsequent judicial inquiry brought out the fact clearly that the pogrom had been engineered by Gladkov and his associates, a fact of which the local authorities could not have been ignorant.

Gladkov fled from the city but returned subsequently, paying but a slight penalty for his monstrous crime.
It should be added, however, that the Government was greatly displeased with the reappearance of the terrible spectre of 1881, as it only tended to throw into bolder relief the policy of legal pogroms by which Western Europe was alarmed.

As a matter of fact, already in October, the semi-official _Grazhdanin_ had occasion to print the following news item: Yesterday [October 15] the financial market [abroad] was marked by depression; our securities have fallen, owing to new rumors concerning alleged contemplated measures against the Jews.
Commenting upon this, the paper declared that these rumors were entirely unfounded, for the reason that "at the present time all our Government departments are weighed down with problems of first-rate national importance which brook no delay, [1] and they could scarcely find time to busy themselves with such matters as the Jewish question, which requires mature consideration and slow progress in action." [Footnote 1: The paper had in mind the crop failures of that year and the famine which prevailed in consequence in the larger part of Russia.] The subdued tone adopted by Count Meshcherski, the court journalist, was only partially in accord with the facts.

He was right in stating that the terrible country-wide distress had compelled the deadly enemies of Judaism to pause in the execution of their entire program.

But he forgot to add that the one clause of that program, the realization of which had already begun--the expulsion from Moscow--was being carried into effect with merciless cruelty.