In the next year, 1882, were passed a set of laws, known as the May Laws, which, with other subsequent ones of a similar nature, have made existence for the Jews almost intolerable in the Russian Empire. These laws, inspired largely by the Greek Orthodox Church, have made it impossible for the Jew “to foreclose a mortgage or to lease or purchase land; he cannot do business on Sundays or Christian holidays; he cannot hold office; he cannot worship or assemble without police permit; he must serve in the army, but cannot become an officer; he is excluded from schools and universities; he is fined for conducting manufactures and commerce; he is almost prohibited from the learned professions.”[119] The press is against them. Here in America we hear of only the climaxes of this persecution, but the oppression is constant and untiring. Is it any wonder that the Jews seek relief in flight? It will become evident from time to time that our Jewish immigration is in many respects unique, and stands as an exception to many of the general principles which one might lay down concerning immigration. So in respect to the causes of their emigration it is not surprising to find a situation somewhat different from other branches of the new immigration, or from any other immigration, in fact. The Jews have always been a “peculiar people,” and religion has played a larger part in their history than in the case of probably any other modern people. The persecutions to which they have been subjected from age to age have had religious diversity as their ostensible and obvious, if not always their only, motive. And in the modern emigration from Russia, while the oppression under which they suffer touches almost every phase of their life, and imposes numberless economic handicaps, it rests ultimately upon religious grounds. Russia is the only modern country from which numerous emigrants are driven by actual persecution, though it is said that Roumania has within the last ten years passed anti-Jewish laws more stringent than those of Russia. Conditions in Austria-Hungary and Italy, and to a less extent in Russia, may be taken as typical of the circumstances which prevail in other countries of southern and eastern Europe, and Asia Minor, from which our new immigrants come. In Bulgaria the following four particular reasons have been assigned for emigration: (1) Bulgaria is distinctively an agricultural country, and while a large per cent of the people own their farms, the holdings are too small to enable them to make a sufficient living, and the methods of cultivation are poor. (2) There is a great dearth of manufacturing industry. In 1907 there were only 166 factories of any size, with 6149 workers. (3) Taxes are very heavy, amounting to one fifth, one fourth, or even one third of the earnings of families. (4) There is much dissatisfaction with the government among the peasants on the grounds of expense, and of the very oppressive terms of military service.[120]