But the secret leaked out very soon.

The Minister had sent out copies of the project to the governors-general, soliciting their opinions, and ere long copies of the project were circulating in London, Paris, and Vienna.

In the spring of 1890, Russia and Western Europe were filled with alarming rumors concerning an enactment of some "forty clauses," which was designed to curtail the commercial activities of the Jews, to increase the rigor of the "Temporary Rules" within the Pale, and restrict the privileges conferred upon several categories of Jews outside of it, to establish medieval Jewish ghettos in St.Petersburg, Moscow, and Kiev, and similar measures.

The foreign press made a terrible outcry against these contemplated new acts of barbarism.
[Footnote 1: See p.

370.] The voice of protest was particularly strong in England.