Stray Jewish agricultural settlements also appeared in Lithuania and White Russia.

But a comparative handful of some ten thousand "Jewish peasants" could not affect the general economic make-up of millions of Jews.

In spite of all shocks, the economic structure of Russian Jewry remained essentially the same.

As before, the central place in this structure was occupied by the liquor traffic, though modified in a certain measure by the introduction of a more extensive system of public leases.

Above the rank and file of tavern keepers, both rural and urban, there had arisen a class of wealthy tax-farmers, who kept a monopoly on the sale of liquor or the collection of excise in various governments of the Pale.