Even boys under the required age of twelve, sometimes no more than eight years old, were caught and offered as conscripts at the recruiting stations, their age being misstated.

[2] The agents perpetrated incredible cruelties.

Houses were raided during the night, and children were torn from the arms of their mothers, or lured away and kidnapped.
[Footnote 1: More literally "catchers"; in Yiddish _Khappers_.] [Footnote 2: This was the more easy, as regular birth-registers were not yet in existence.] After being captured, the Jewish conscripts were sent into the recruiting jail where they were kept in confinement until their examination at the recruiting station.

The enlisted minors were turned over to a special officer to be dispatched to their places of destination, mostly in the Eastern provinces including Siberia.

For it must be noted that the cantonists were stationed almost to a man in the outlying Russian governments, where they could be brought up at a safe distance from all Jewish influences.