FURTHER ALLEVIATIONS AND ATTEMPTS AT RUSSIFICATION Nevertheless, the liberal spirit of the age did its work slowly but surely, and partial legal alleviations were granted by the Government or wrested from it by the force of circumstances.

The barriers which had been erected for the Jews within the Pale itself were done away with.
Thus the right of residence was extended to the cities of Nicholayev and Sevastopol, which, though geographically situated within the Pale, had been legally placed outside of it.

The obstructions in the way of temporary visits to the holy city of Kiev were mitigated.

The disgraceful old-time privilege of several cities, such as Zhitomir and Vilna, entitling them to exclude the Jews from certain streets, [1] was revoked.

Moreover, by the law of 1862, the Jews were permitted to acquire land in the rural districts on those manorial estates in which after the liberation of the peasants the binding relation of the peasants to the landed proprietors had been completely discontinued.
Unfortunately, what the Jews thus gained through the liberation of the peasants, they lost to a large extent soon afterwards through the Polish insurrection of 1863, forfeiting the right of acquiring immovable property outside the cities in the greater part of the Pale.