The number of applicants desirous of settling on the land continued to increase. In the course of 1808, when the expulsion from the villages was in full swing, the White Russian governors bombarded the Minister of the Interior with petitions to allow as many Jewish families as possible to proceed to New Russia. The Governor of Vitebsk reported that the rural Jews
have been unseasonably expelled, ruined, and reduced to beggary. A large part of them is without daily bread and without shelter, and they emigrate in considerable numbers to New Russia. Many Jews, in the expectation of being transplanted to New Russia, have sold all their belongings and beg leave persistently to go there, though it be only for a domicile.
At the same time reports from the New Russian Immigration Bureau and from Duke Richelieu were constantly reaching St. Petersburg. They emphasized the necessity of stemming the tide of emigrants, in view of the fact that even the first parties of colonists had found it difficult to establish themselves, while the new ones could not expect to find either huts or any other accommodations. By the beginning of 1808 the Immigration Bureau was in charge of about one thousand colonist families, and, in addition, several thousand immigrants who had arrived "voluntarily" were waiting for their turn to be settled. As a result of the unaccustomed climatic conditions and the lack of housing accommodations and provisions, disease began to spread among the new-comers. All these circumstances decided the Government to put a temporary stop to the settling of Jews in the New Russian colonies (ukase of April 6, 1810).
The attempt to convert a part of the Jewish population into agriculturists would undoubtedly have met with huge success, had the Government been sufficiently prepared for such a momentous economic transformation. Ten thousand emigrants had already gone to New Russia, and the compact starving masses were rushing after them. But the Government was overwhelmed by the difficulties of the task, and brought the whole movement to a standstill. Simultaneously a stop was put to the expulsion from the villages in the western Governments, which threatened to lead to an unparalleled economic catastrophe. Thus, after many vacillations and upheavals, the economic structure of Jewish life was re-established on its old foundations—commerce, handicrafts, and rural occupations.
FOOTNOTES:
[248] The insistence on Hebrew in the latter case is connected with the rabbinical form of promissory note, the so-called Shtar Iska [249] See Nikitin, "The Jewish Agriculturists" (in Russian), St. Petersburg, 1887, p. 16.