St. Landry Democrat

The Jews in Russia.

The cable brought the news the other day that the resident or visiting Jews, not Russian-born, had been ordered to leave St. Petersburg. The explanation of this arbitrary expulsion is not far to seek. The Jews are cosmopolitan. It is believed in Russia that they have a wonderfully close and effective organization of their own which is more than a match for the Government police. Of the persons arrested for Nihilism a large proportion have been Jews. It is more than suspected that they are exceptionally active in the circulation of revolutionary publications, in smuggling revolutionists into and out of the empire, and in the frequent escapes of political prisoners. Moreover, in at least one province they have been successful in converting Christians of the sect known as Sabbatniki, or Sabbath-keepers, to Judaism. "In the province of Tambov," says the Golos, "an order has just been issued directing all the Jews to leave within a week. In spite of the combined efforts of the police and the orthodox clergy, they have converted a considerable number of the Old Believers." Finally it is popularly believed in Russia that Jews who embrace Christianity are done away with. "Recently," says the Warsaw Kurier Poranny, "a Jew of this city who had become a Christian disappeared. On investigation it was ascertained that he had been decoyed by some Jews to a suburb; that they had coaxed and threatened him by turns to return to his former faith, offering him 1,000 roubles, and menacing him with death; and that finding him unmoved they had locked him up in a cell to think the matter over at his leisure. Luckily he found means to get word to the authorities, and was promptly rescued." While some of the Russian newspapers advocate the granting of equal rights to the Jews, others insist that they are an alien and pernicious element in Russian society, and clamor for their banishment, bag and baggage, from the empire. At present the authorities seem to lean on the side of persecution.