If it were avarice--the fear of losing the gains from their business for four years--they would not empty their pockets and sell their houses and sink into debt, on the chance of successfully bribing the Czar's agents.

The Jewish recruit dreaded, indeed, brutality and injustice at the hands of officers and comrades; he feared for his family, which he left, often enough, as dependents on the charity of relatives; but the fear of an unholy life was greater than all other fears.

I know, for I remember my cousin who was taken as a soldier.
Everything had been done to save him.

Money had been spent freely--my uncle did not stop at his unmarried daughter's portion, when everything else was gone.

My cousin had also submitted to some secret treatment,--some devastating drug administered for months before the examination,--but the effects were not pronounced enough, and he was passed.