One circular sent out by the Government went even so far as to prohibit "to to discuss the question of granting the Jews equal rights with those of the other (Russian) subjects." On one occasion the editor of the _Razswyet_, _, in appealing to the authorities of St.Petersburg against the prohibition of a certain article by the Odessa censor, had to resort to the sham argument that the incriminated article referred merely to the necessity of granting the Jews equality in the right of residence but not in other rights.

But even this stratagem failed of its object.

After a year of bitter struggle against the interference of the censor and against financial difficulties--the number of Russian readers among Jews was still very small at that time--the _Razswyet_ passed out of existence.
Its successor _Sion_ ("Zion"), edited by Solovaychik and Leon Pinsker, who subsequently bec me the exponent of pre-Herzlian Zionism,[1] attempted a different policy: to prove the case of the Jews by arraigning the anti-Semites and acquainting the Russian public with the history of Judaism.

_Sion_, too, like its predecessors, had to give up the fight in less than a year.
[Footnote 1: See later, p.

330 et seq.] After an interval of seven years a new attempt was made in the same city.