[Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p. 368.]

Synagogues may not be built in the vicinity of churches. The Russian
schools of all grades are to be open to Jewish children, who "are not
compelled to change their religion" (Clause 106)--a welcome provision in
view of the compulsory methods which had then become habitual. The
coercive baptism of Jewish children was provided for in a separate
enactment, the Statute on Conscription, which is declared "to remain in
force." In this way the Statute of 1835 reduces itself to a codification
of the whole mass of the preceding anti-Jewish legislation. Its only
positive feature was that it put a stop to the expulsion from the
villages which had ruined the Jewish population during the years
1804-1830.


6. THE RUSSIAN CENSORSHIP AND CONVERSIONIST ENDEAVORS

With all its discriminations, the promulgation of this general statute
was far from checking the feverish activity of the Government. With
indefatigable zeal, its hands went on turning the legislative wheel and
squeezing ever tighter the already unbearable vise of Jewish life. The
slightest attempt to escape from its pressure was punished ruthlessly.
In 1838 the police of St. Petersburg discovered a group of Jews in the
capital "with expired passports," these Jews having extended their stay
there a little beyond the term fixed for Jewish travellers, and the Tzar
curtly decreed: "to be sent to serve in the penal companies of
Kronstadt." [1] In 1840 heavy fines were imposed upon the landed
proprietors in the Great Russian governments for "keeping over" Jews on
their estates.