_Artisans_, permitted free residence by the law of 1865; but constant restrictions and new interpretations of the term have reduced the number of Jews enjoying this status to a bare fraction of the Jewish population. _Merchants of the First Guild_, allowed to leave the Pale after five years’ membership in their guild, and on condition of the payment of an annual tax of 800 roubles ($400) for ten years, after removal from the Pale. Numerically insignificant to begin with, this class was further reduced by police blackmail until it became almost negligible. _Jewish graduates of Russian institutions of higher education._ The operation of the “percentage” rule, however, reduces these to a minimum. (See pp. 33–34.) _Prostitutes._ Jewish women who have become prostitutes are permitted to live outside the Pale. 2. Occupational Restrictions The public service of the Empire, or of any of its political subdivisions, is practically closed to Jews. Jews may not be teachers (except in Jewish schools), or, as a rule, farmers. These artificial restrictions operate to drive the Jews into the occupations permitted to them, chiefly trade and commerce, thus overcrowding the ranks of tradesmen and artisans. 3. Property Restrictions Jews may not buy or sell, rent, lease or even manage land or real estate outside the Pale or outside of the city limits within the Pale. The artisans privileged to practise their handicraft outside the Pale may under no circumstances _own_ their homes. The ownership, direct or indirect, of property in mines or oil fields is also forbidden to Jews. 4. Fiscal Burdens The Jews pay, in addition to the normal taxes, a candle tax, designed for the support of Jewish schools, and a meat tax, originally destined for Jewish religious purposes; but in practice these funds are diverted to general, non-Jewish, purposes, and even used, in part, for the enforcement of police measures against the Jews. 5. Educational Restrictions Jews are not admitted to the secondary or higher educational institutions and universities, except in proportions varying from 3 to 15 per cent. of the entire number of non-Jewish pupils. (For high schools: 10 per cent. within the Pale and 5 per cent. outside the Pale, except in the two capitals St. Petersburg and Moscow, where it is only 3 per cent.; and for universities all over the Empire, about 3 per cent.) =A ministerial decree issued in August, 1915, permits the children of all Jews actively connected with the war to enter any educational institution in the country regardless of the percentage norm; but in practice this decree, like the decree abolishing the Pale, is entirely subject to interpretation and modification by the local authorities, who have, so far, virtually ignored it.=