regarded as doing God good service to take care of so great a number of men who were capable of paying considerable taxes with ease. Two Starosts--those of Tulste and of Old Barnow--drew up in battle array, one at each side of the town, and each sent a message to the following effect to the Jewish community: "If you do not choose me as your protector, I shall at once put you and your possessions to fire and sword." The unfortunate Jews had not much time granted them in which to deliberate; they quickly gathered together all the ready money that they could, and bought the protection of both. This conduct brought down further misfortunes upon the poor people. The Starosts were both philanthropists, and both wished to fulfill the duty they had undertaken. Neither trusted the other with a work of such importance, and each determined to put his rival to the proof; so the Starost of Old Barnow began to murder and plunder the Jews at one end of the town, and then waited to see whether the other would do his duty and protect his _proteges_. But, unfortunately, his rival was equally determined to try the worth of his promises, and had been doing exactly the same at the other end. Thus neither gained his object. Good men seldom attain what they strive for! The terrible carnage lasted for three days and three nights.... The mild autumn sunshine falls as softly on the graves of these murdered people as elsewhere, and the asters are larger and more perfect between these closely massed hillocks; the grasshoppers chirp merrily in the grass and moss that cover them, and the autumn threads spun by the busy spider wave to and fro in the gentle breeze. Peace and quiet reign here also--a peace as restful as in any other part of the "good place;" and yet it seems to me as though a sudden cry must arise from these graves, as though a piercing, agonized cry must break the stillness of all around; and that cry would not be one of mourning, but of accusation, and not alone of the Starosts of Tulste and Old Barnow.... There are many other graves besides these that bear the same date ... those, for instance, that were filled in the days when a Czartoryski hunted the Jews because there was so little game left in the neighborhood. And then, again, in this very century, in those three terrible summers when the wrath of God--the cholera--raged throughout the great plain. Grass makes more resistance against the scythe than these people did, in their narrow pestiferous streets, against the great plague. The graves are innumerable, and the field in which they lie is a very large one; but the community now living in Barnow is much smaller than one would think on seeing the cemetery. But the very poorest creature who is given a resting-place and headstone there, has it in perpetuity; none will disturb his rest until, as they say, the last trumpet sounds....