On one beautiful April morning of 1886, the Government came out with the following enactment: The family of a Jew guilty of evading military service is liable to a fine of three hundred rubles ($150).

The collection of the fine shall be decreed by the respective recruiting station and carried out by the police.

It shall not be substituted by imprisonment in the case of destitute persons liable to that fine.
In addition, a military reward was promised for the seizure of a Jew who had failed to present himself to the recruiting authorities.
By virtue of this barbarous principle of collective responsibility, new hardships were inflicted upon the Jews of Russia.

Since the law provided that the fine for evading military service be imposed upon the _family_ of the culprit, the police interpreted that term "liberally," taking it to include parents, brothers, and near relatives.

The following procedure gradually came into vogue.