In one devastated synagogue the human fiends got hold of eleven Torah scrolls, tearing to pieces some of them and hideously desecrating other copies of the Holy Writ, inscribed with the commandments, "Thou shalt not murder," "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not commit adultery"-- which evidently ran counter to the beliefs of the rioters.
The example set by Yekaterinoslav, the capital of the government of the same name, proved to be contagious, for during August and September pogroms took place in several neighboring towns and townlets.

Among these the pogrom at Novo-Moskovsk on September 4 was particularly violent, nearly all Jewish houses in that town having been destroyed by the mob.
The year 1884 was marked by a novel feature in the annals of pogroms: an anti-Jewish riot outside the Pale of Jewish Settlement, in the ancient Russian city of Nizhni-Novgorod, which sheltered a small Jewish colony of some twenty families.

While comparatively circumscribed as far as the material loss is concerned, the Nizhni-Novgorod pogrom stands out in ghastly relief by the number of its human victims.

A report, based upon official data, which endeavors to tone down the colors, gives the following description of the terrible events: The "disorders" [a euphemism for excesses accompanied by murder] began on June 7 about nine o'clock in the evening, due to the instigation of several half-drunk laborers who happened to overhear a Christian mother telling her child, who was playing with a Jewish girl, to stop playing with her, as the Jews might slaughter her.

The work of destruction began with the Jewish house of prayer which was crowded with worshippers.