The legal enactment of 1804 was appraised by the Russian Jews at its true value: problematic benefits in the future and undeniable hardships for the present. The prospect of future benefits, the attainment of which was conditioned by the weakening of the time-honored foundations of a stalwart Jewish cultural life, expressing itself in language, school, and communal self-government, had no fascination for Russian Jews, who had not yet been touched by the influences of Western Europe. But what the Russian Jews did feel, and feel with sickening pain, was the imminence of a terrible economic catastrophe, the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from the villages. It soon became evident that the expulsion would affect 60,000 Jewish families, or about half a million Jews. Needless to say, within the two or three years of respite which remained before the catastrophe, this huge mass could not possibly gain access to new fields of labor and establish itself in new domiciles, and it was therefore in danger of being starved to death. In consequence, St. Petersburg was flooded with petitions imploring the authorities to postpone the expulsion for a time. These petitions came not only from the Kahals but also from country squires, for whom the removal of the Jewish tenants and innkepeers from their estates entailed considerable financial losses. With the approach of the year 1808, the time limit set for the expulsion, the shouts of despair from the provinces became louder and louder. It is difficult to say whether the Russian Government would have responded to the terrible outcry, had it not been for an event which set all the political circles of St. Petersburg agog.