Editor's Note: This law required Jews to pay double the poll tax of other Russians, or else leave Russia after paying triple this tax. It was decreed between the 2nd partition of Poland in 1793 and the third partition in 1795. Therefore, the gubernias where Jews lived are somewhat different from the gubernias in the Pale in the 19th century. The motivation for the law was thought to be Christian merchants worried about competition from the Jews.
On collecting from Jews, enrolled by cities in the petty townsmen and merchant classes, a fixed tax, double that decreed for Christian petty townsmen and merchants in laws for various faiths.
To allow Jews to engage in their petty townsmen and merchant businesses
in the gubernias: Minsk, Iz'yaslav, Bratslav, Polotsk, Mogilev, Kiev, Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversk,
Ekaterinoslav, and in Taurida Oblast, enrolled by cities in the petty townsmen and merchant classes,
we command from those Jews mentioned, who wish to enjoy such permissions, to obtain by
the first day of the following July the fixed tax, double that decreed for Christian petty townsmen and
merchants in laws for various faiths; the same who do not wish to remain, we give them the freedom, on the basis
of the Law on cities, by payment of three-year double taxes, to leave Our Empire.
(P.P.S.Z. Vol. XXIII, No. 17,224).
