The Mob and the Mental Epidemic

What is the nature and the source of the mob? It is at one moment so humane, at another so savage, at one moment so heroic, at the next so cowardly, that it would seem at first glance as if it were governed by caprice, not by law. Yet there are certain conditions which favor the production of a mob, and a study of these conditions may help us to understand its apparently lawless nature. The examination of a few cases may disclose some of the factors which form the problem.

In 1883, in the city of Ekaterinoslav, Russia, a Jewish merchant happened to quarrel with a peasant woman. "Murder! murder!" she screamed at the top of her voice. A crowd of idlers soon gathered about the two combatants. "Beat the Jews!" suggested someone in the crowd. A few stones flew in the direction of the Jew's store, more and more followed; then the mob made a rush for the building and destroyed it.

At about the same time, in one of the suburbs of Nijni-Novgorod, the following incident occurred. A child fell into a ditch; a Jewess pitied it, took it in her arms, and carried it into the synagogue to warm it A Christian woman witnessed the scene, and began to cry out that a Christian child had had been kidnapped for sacrificial purposes. A crowd of about three thousand men gathered; a drunken fellow called out, "Beat the Jews!" Thereupon an attack was made, and the mob, after having demolished the Jewish synagogue proceeded after the manner peculiar to all Russian anti-Jewish riots, breaking into Jewish houses, killing, violating, and barbarously demolishing every person And thing they found in them.