The Kahal elders--it will be remembered that they continued to exist after the abrogation of the Kahals, acting as the fiscal agents of the Government [1]--now faced a terrible alternative: to become, in the words of a contemporary, "either murderers of martyrs," i.e., either to capture and send into the army any youth or boy, without discrimination, or themselves to don the gray uniform and be impressed into military services as "penal" recruits.

In consequence, a fiendish hunt after human beings was set afoot in the Pale of Settlement.

Adults were seized and, regardless of their being the only mainstay of their families, were taken captive, and children of eight were captured and presented to the recruiting authorities as being of the obligatory age of twelve.

But despite all this hunting, many communities were not able to furnish their quota of soldiers, and the number of "penal" recruits from among the Kahal elders was very considerable.
[Footnote 1: See above, p.

60.] Weeping and moaning resounded in the neighborhood of the recruiting stations in the Jewish towns where parents and relatives took leave from their dear ones who were doomed to a perpetual barrack life.