There were ten times as many stores as there should have been, ten times as many tailors, cobblers, barbers, tinsmiths.

A Gentile, if he failed in Polotzk, could go elsewhere, where there was less competition.

A Jew could make the circle of the Pale, only to find the same conditions as at home.
Outside the Pale he could only go to certain designated localities, on payment of prohibitive fees, augmented by a constant stream of bribes; and even then he lived at the mercy of the local chief of police.
Artisans had the right to reside outside the Pale, on fulfilment of certain conditions.

This sounded easy to me, when I was a little girl, till I realized how it worked.

There was a capmaker who had duly qualified, by passing an examination and paying for his trade papers, to live in a certain city.