But though the dispassionate student can have nothing but pity for a brave man perishing in the performance of what he deemed to be his duty, he can also sympathise with those who hailed their arch-enemy’s death with savage delight. They saw in M. De Plehve, not a tragic character drawing upon himself the vengeance of an inexorable Atê, but only the merciless Minister, the oppressor of those who differed from him in their political ideals, the executioner of men whose sole crime was their loyalty to the faith of their fathers and the traditions of their race. As the lawyer Korobchevsky said before the Court, in defence of the assassin: “The bomb which killed the late Minister of the Interior was filled, not with dynamite, but with the burning tears of the mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters of the men whom he sent to the gallows, or to die slowly in prison or in Siberia.” Among the sufferers from M. De Plehve’s policy none had greater reasons to hate him than the Jews. He regarded them, not without cause, as the most energetic opponents to his autocratic schemes, and his antipathy towards them on that account was enhanced by his just appreciation of their abilities. Hence the exceptional rigour in his treatment of them. M. De Plehve used to refer to the revolutionary activity of the Jewish youth as a justification for his own measures of coercion. That the Jews should be ready to join, or even lead, in every attempt to overthrow the social and political system under which they suffer so grievously is only natural. Equally natural it is that the man to whom that system was everything should have tried to suppress them. The Kishineff massacre, as we have seen, was universally attributed to M. De Plehve, and when the news of his assassination went forth few surpassed the Jews in their exultation. The Jewish daily paper _Forward_, of New York, immediately organised a meeting under the auspices of the United Russian Revolutionists. The demonstrators filled one of the largest halls in New York to overflowing, and at every mention of M. De Plehve’s assassin, Sazonoff, burst into delirious applause. He was praised as the worthy son of a noble cause; his victim was described as the captured Port Arthur of Russian despotism, and the interference of the police alone checked the enthusiasm.[198]