Anti-Jewish riots occurred in Odessa in August 1907. The violence of the anti-Jewish Press and the reluctance of the central authorities to keep it in check were as much features then as they were in 1903. When a newly appointed Governor-General declared in Odessa that he was not afraid of protecting the Jews because he considered them equal in the eyes of the law to other citizens, he was considered to have done an act of daring courage. Finally, it is plain not only from Prince Ourousov’s book, but also from the experience of all capable officials in Russia, that as soon as energetic measures are taken against anti-Jewish agitators the riots cease. Only the sad fact remains that, as Prince Ourousov points out, since 1903 there is not a high post in Russia which has not changed hands: but the unfortunate thing is that the changes have one and all been for the worse; for M. Stolypin, or whoever advises him in these matters, lacks even a particle of the quality which Napoleon possessed in the highest degree: an eye for men.[9] The result is that excellent Governors (among them staunch Conservatives) have been dismissed on ridiculous pretexts, and have in some cases been replaced by unamiable and incompetent blunderers. [9] It should be said, in justice to M. Stolypin, that it is extremely difficult to find people to accept these posts. Those who are capable of filling them competently refuse them. STORIES POGROM Count X. was a landowner who lived in the south of Russia, not far from one of the large manufacturing towns. He spent the whole summer in a small country house, about six miles from the town, with his wife and children. Not far from the house, at about a mile’s distance, was a village which was bigger than an ordinary village and less big than an ordinary town. The greater part of the population consisted of Jews; they were poor Jews mostly, some of them very poor indeed. The Count and his wife knew the people of the place well, and their relations with the poor Jews were of the friendliest description; they were constantly employing them to do small jobs, and their special friends were the tailor and the bootmaker, whose shops were in the Jewish bazaar, the poorest quarter of the place. The bootmaker’s name was Gertzel, and the tailor was called Daniel. When the Dreyfus case was drawing to its close, the whole of this population was in a great state of excitement, and the Countess X. used every afternoon to go and give Gertzel and Daniel the latest news. Just before the result of the final court-martial at Rennes was known, Countess X. received a telegram from a friend of hers abroad saying that Dreyfus had been acquitted. She went post haste with the news to the village, and soon the whole place was in a tumult of thanksgiving and rejoicing. Next day, when the authentic news of the verdict arrived, she was obliged to go and tell the disappointing news.