incompatible with military service, but the other qualifications
required by the general rules shall be left out of consideration"
(Clause 10).

[Footnote 1: From _Canton_, a word applied in Prussia in the eighteenth
century to a recruiting district. In Russia, beginning with 1805, the term
"cantonists" is applied to children born of soldiers and therefore liable
to conscription.]

[Footnote 2: See Vol. I, p. 395, n. 1.]

The duty of enlisting the recruits was imposed upon the Jewish communes,
or Kahals, which were to elect for that purpose between three and six
executive officers, or "trustees," in every city. The community as such
was held responsible for the supply of a given number of recruits from
its own midst. It was authorized to draft into military service any Jew
guilty "of irregularity in the payment of taxes, of vagrancy, and other
misdemeanors." In case the required number of recruits was not
forthcoming within a given term, the authorities were empowered to
obtain them from the derelict community "by way of execution." [1] Any
irregularity on the part of the recruiting "trustees" was to be punished
by the imposition of fines or even by sending them into the army.

[Footnote 1: The term "execution" (_ekzekutzia_) is used in Russian to
designate a writ empowering an officer to carry a judgment into effect,
in other words, to resort to forcible seizure.]

The following categories of Jews were exempted from military duty:
merchants holding membership in guilds, artisans affiliated with
trade-unions, mechanics in factories, agricultural colonists, rabbis,