It was now within the power of the Government to strengthen this movement by admitting "distinguished Jews to civil service." While this literary feud concerning the problem of Judaism was raging, an unhealthy movement against the Jews started among the dregs of the Polish population.

In several localities of the Kingdom there suddenly appeared "victims of ritual murder" in the shape of dead bodies of children, the discovery of which was followed by a series of legal trials against the Jews (1815-1816).

Innocent people were thrown into prison, where they languished for years, and were subjected to cross-examinations, though without the inquisitorial apparatus of ancient Poland.

It is impossible to say whither this orgy of superstition might have led, had it not been stopped by a word of command from St.Petersburg.In 1817, as a result of the energetic representations of "the Deputies of the Jewish People," [1] Sonnenberg and his fellow-workers, the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs, Golitzin, gave orders that the ukase which had just been issued by him, forbidding the arbitrary injection of a ritual element into criminal cases, be strictly enforced in the Kingdom of Poland.

This action saved the lives of scores of prisoners, and put a stop to the obscure agitation which endeavored to revive the medieval spectre.
[Footnote 1: Compare Vol.