THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6502, 29 December 1881, Page 6

THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.

(Sm Frmetoo Ckreaieis.) A few Russian Jewe, the advance guard of a mighty host that have been driven from the Czar's domain, arrived at Chicago on Oct, 19. They are, or were, well-to-do tradespeople. One of them stated that, at Steff, the rabble surrounded and broke into the boose of Solomon Droloxby, a wealthy distiller. The latter asked the crowd if it woe money they desired. They answered, “ No; but shortly afterwards asked how much money be had. He bended the leader 4000 roubles (about 2200 dollars) in paper money, wKereujxm they tore it into pieces and scattered it to the winds. A piano was broken into pieces. The mob then invaded the Jews' warehouse, and threw sugars, liquors and machinery of the establishment* into the river. All boose* in the Jewish settlement were wrecked, end furniture and beds broken into fragment* and the ruins set on fire. M. Droloxky was worth 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 roubles, and from a millionaire became a pauper almost in a night The bouse* of about 2000 Jewish families were burned or tern down. These outrages were committed while the corps of the Bastion army were stationed at Kieff. The troops were not railed upon to stop the rioters, and the Governor of Kieff only interposed at the loot moment, to say ; " There, boys, that's enough," but the command was not given till after several of the Jewish women had been outraged. The scenes at Kieff hardly furnish a parallel to what wan done at other points. At Perysslof, nine miles from Kieff, a city of 14,000 inhabitants, of whom about 4000 were Jews, not a bout® was left standing that had been Inhabited by a Jew, and the entire laraclitish population was compelled to leave. At this place the Costack* attempted te help the Jews, but were driven off by the Russian peasantry, who were armed with soythes, pruning-hook#, Ac. At Simla, similar outrages occurred. AtSitomer everything belonging to the Jews wa* destroyed, the synagogue was burned down and the Pentateuch was burned in the public square. These scenes were repeated in Northern as well as Southern Russia, and in the remotest borders o! Poland. Crop* were burned, store* and dwellings set on fire, and people driven into the otreete and out of the cities and towns, bomele**, stripped of their earthly possessions and terror-stricken. Attacks were made upon the entire people, and hundreds of thousands were compelled te flee lor their lives. The outbreak fell upon them with ail the more force and effect because, by the law* of Russia, tbey were prohibited from carrying arms, and they were thus powerless against their oppressors. Tens of thousands of families fied into Austria, and in their flight households became separated. That the persecutions bod the sanction of the Russian autboritiee was evident from the foot not only that the people would not have dared to attack them If the authorities bad keen disposed to protect the Jews, but the further fact that the Governors of several provinces in which the outrages occurred were afterwards promoted to higher post* by the Czar. The opinion of the Jewe is that the persecutions were tolerated by the Csar with the hope that the vengeance of the peasantry might ba wreaked on them, which would otherwise cart itself against the Government or seek relief in Nihilism. The Russian emigrants seen yesterday said that Nihilism wa* fact permeating the entire empire, and embraced all elasies from noble* down through the police and army to the masse* of the common people.