THE ECONOMIC PLIGHT OF RUSSIAN JEWRY AND AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS The attempt at thinning the Jewish population by emigration having failed, the congested Jewish masses continued to gasp for air in their Pale of Settlement.

The slightest effort to penetrate beyond the Pale into the interior was treated as a criminal offence.

In December, 1847, the Council of State engaged in a protracted and earnest discussion about the geographical point up to which the Jewish coachmen of Polotzk should be allowed, to drive the inmates of the local school of cadets on their annual trips to the Russian capital.

The discussion arose out of the fact that the road leading from Polotzk to St.Petersburg is crossed by the line separating the Pale from the prohibited interior.

A proposal had been made to permit the coachmen to drive their passengers as far as Pskov.