in May, 1860.

The representatives of the St.Petersburg community, Baron Joseph Guenzburg and others, petitioned the Tzar to postpone the verdict until the scholarly commission of experts should have rendered its decision with regard to the compatibility of ritual murder with the teachings of Judaism.

But the president of the Council of State, Count Orlov, presented the matter to the Tzar in a different light, asserting that all that the Jews intended by their petition was "to keep off for an indefinite period the decision on a case in which their coreligionists are involved." He, therefore, insisted on the immediate execution of the sentence, and the Tzar yielded.
After eight long years of incarceration, in the course of which two of the impeached Jews committed suicide, the principal "perpetrators" were found to be physical wrecks and no longer able to discharge their penal servitude.

The innocent sufferer, old Yushkevicher, languished in prison for seven more years, and was finally liberated in 1867 by order of Alexander II., who had been petitioned by Adolph Cremieux, the president of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, to pardon the unhappy man.

In this way the heritage of the dark past protruded into the increasing brightness of the new Russia, which in the beginning of the sixties was passing through the era of "Great Reforms.".