This retrograde tendency was bound to affect the Jewish question.

The bacillus of Judaeophobia [1] became astir in the politically immature minds which had been unhinged by the acts of terrorism.

The influential press organs, which maintained more or less close relations with the leading Government spheres, adopted more and more a hostile attitude towards the Jews.

The metropolitan newspaper _Novoye Vremya_ ("The New Time") [2] which at that time embarked upon its infamous career as the semi-official organ of the Russian reaction, and a number of provincial newspapers subsidized by the Government suddenly began to speak of the Jews in a tone which suggested that they were in the possession of some terrible secret.
[Footnote 1: The term used in Russia for anti-Semitism.] [Footnote 2: See above, p.

205.] Almost on the day following the attempt on the life of the Tzar, the papers of this ilk began to insinuate that the Jews had a hand in it, and shortly thereafter the South-Russian press published alarming rumors about proposed organized attacks upon the Jews of that region.
These rumors were based on facts.