210, n.

1.] Accordingly, Abramovich began to write in the dialect of the people, under the assumed pen-name of _Mendele Mokher Sforim_ (Mendele the Bookseller).

Choosing his subjects from the life of the lower classes, he portrayed the pariahs of Jewish society and their oppressors (_Dos kleine Menshele_, "A Humble Man"), the life of Jewish beggars and vagrants (_Fishke der Krummer_, "Fishke the Cripple"), and the immense cobweb which had been spun around the destitute masses by the contractors of the meat tax and their accomplices, the alleged benefactors of the community (_Die Taxe, oder die Bande Stodt Bale Toyvos_, "The Meat Tax, or the Gang of Town Benefactors").

His trenchant satire on the "tax" hit the mark, and the author had reason to fear the ire of those who were hurt to the quick by his literary shafts.

He had to leave the town of Berdychev in which he resided at the time, and removed to Zhitomir.
Here he wrote in 1873 one of his ripest works, "The Mare, or Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" (_Die Klache_).