This comedy was well understood abroad. At the end of July and in the beginning of August interpellations were introduced in both Houses of the English Parliament, as to whether Her Majesty's Government found it possible to make diplomatic representations in defence of the persecuted Russian Jews for whom England would have to provide, were they to arrive there in large masses. Premier Salisbury, in the House of Lords, and Fergusson, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in the House of Commons, replied that "these proceedings, which, if rightly reported to us, are deeply to be regretted, concern the internal affairs of the Russian Empire, and do not admit of any interference on the part of Her Majesty's Government." [1] When shortly afterwards preparations were set on foot for calling a protest meeting in London, the Russian Government hastened to announce through the British ambassador in St. Petersburg that no new measures against the Jews were in contemplation, and the meeting was called off. Rumor had it that the Lord Mayor of London, Henry Isaacs, who was a Jew, did not approve of this meeting, over which, according to the English custom, he would have to preside. The action of the Lord Mayor may have been "tactful," but is was certainly not free from an admixture of timidity. [Footnote 1: See _The Jewish Chronicle_ of August 8, 1890, p. 18b.] 2. CONTINUED HARASSING While anxiously endeavoring to appease public opinion abroad, the Russian Government at home did all it could to keep the Jews in an agitated state of mind. The legal drafts and the circulars which had been sent out secretly by the central Government in St. Petersburg elicited the liveliest sympathy on the part of the provincial administrators. Not satisfied with signifying to the Ministry their approval of the contemplated disabilities, many officials of high rank began to display openly their bitter hatred of the Jews.