the provinces, and the public opinion of Russia was systematically poisoned by the venom of Judaeophobia. When the Pahlen Commission was discharged, the Tzar having "attached himself to the opinion of the minority," [1] the Government had no difficulty in finding a few kind-hearted officials who were eager to carry the project framed by this reactionary minority into effect. The project itself, which had been elaborated in the Ministry of the Interior under the direction of Plehve, the sinister Chief of Police, was guarded with great secrecy, as if it concerned a plan of military operations against a belligerent Power. But the secret leaked out very soon. The Minister had sent out copies of the project to the governors-general, soliciting their opinions, and ere long copies of the project were circulating in London, Paris, and Vienna. In the spring of 1890, Russia and Western Europe were filled with alarming rumors concerning an enactment of some "forty clauses," which was designed to curtail the commercial activities of the Jews, to increase the rigor of the "Temporary Rules" within the Pale, and restrict the privileges conferred upon several categories of Jews outside of it, to establish medieval Jewish ghettos in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kiev, and similar measures. The foreign press made a terrible outcry against these contemplated new acts of barbarism. [Footnote 1: See p. 370.] The voice of protest was particularly strong in England. The London _Times_ assailed in violent terms the reactionary policies of Russia, and a special organ, called _Darkest Russia_, was published for this purpose by Russian political refugees in England. The Russian Government denied these rumors through its diplomatic channels, though at the very same time the well-informed _Novoye Vremya_ and _Grazhdanin_ were not barred from printing news items concerning the projected disabilities or from recommending ferocious measures against the Jews for the purpose "of removing them from all branches of labor."