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Intelligent Robotics and Applications

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Zhiyong Chen · Alexandre Mendes
Yamin Yan · Shifeng Chen (Eds.)
LNAI 10985

Intelligent Robotics
and Applications
11th International Conference, ICIRA 2018
Newcastle, NSW, Australia, August 9–11, 2018
Proceedings, Part II

123
Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 10985

Subseries of Lecture Notes in Computer Science

LNAI Series Editors


Randy Goebel
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Yuzuru Tanaka
Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
Wolfgang Wahlster
DFKI and Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

LNAI Founding Series Editor


Joerg Siekmann
DFKI and Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/1244
Zhiyong Chen Alexandre Mendes

Yamin Yan Shifeng Chen (Eds.)


Intelligent Robotics
and Applications
11th International Conference, ICIRA 2018
Newcastle, NSW, Australia, August 9–11, 2018
Proceedings, Part II

123
Editors
Zhiyong Chen Yamin Yan
University of Newcastle University of Newcastle
Callaghan, NSW Callaghan, NSW
Australia Australia
Alexandre Mendes Shifeng Chen
University of Newcastle Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced
Callaghan, NSW Technology
Australia Shenzhen
China

ISSN 0302-9743 ISSN 1611-3349 (electronic)


Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence
ISBN 978-3-319-97588-7 ISBN 978-3-319-97589-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97589-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018950091

LNCS Sublibrary: SL7 – Artificial Intelligence

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018


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Preface

The 11th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications


(ICIRA 2018) was hosted by the School of Electrical Engineering and Computing,
Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, The University of Newcastle, Australia,
during August 9–11, 2018. The conference aimed at bringing researchers from several
countries and organizations together to encourage new collaborations in the areas of
robotics, automation, and mechatronics.
In this edition of the event, we had some outstanding contributions in the areas of
multi-agent systems and distributed control, mobile robotics and path planning, robotic
vision, human–machine interaction, and robot intelligence and learning. In addition,
there were many contributions in application areas, including rehabilitation robotics
and industrial robots.
The conference attracted a total of 129 submissions by researchers from 13
countries, and 81 manuscripts were accepted for presentation and inclusion in the
conference proceedings. All manuscripts accepted were peer-reviewed by at least two
reviewers, and represent valuable contributions to the state of the art in robotics
research.
We acknowledge the contribution of the Program Committee as well as all the
reviewers in supporting this event. We also thank the four plenary speakers who
participated in the conference: Emeritus Laureate Professor Graham Goodwin from
The University of Newcastle, Australia, Professor Toshio Fukuda from Nagoya
University, Japan, Professor Eduardo Nebot from The University of Sydney, Australia,
and Professor Richard Middleton from The University of Newcastle, Australia. Special
thanks go to Laureate Professor Graham Goodwin for his contributed paper, included
in these proceedings. We also thank all authors who chose this event to submit their
work and hope it met their expectations. Finally, we thank Springer for the support and
for providing access to the conference organization system, which streamlined the
entire process.

June 2018 Zhiyong Chen


Alexandre Mendes
Yamin Yan
Shifeng Chen
Organization

General Chair
Zhiyong Chen The University of Newcastle, Australia

Program Chair
Alexandre Mendes The University of Newcastle, Australia

Program Co-chair
Stephan Chalup The University of Newcastle, Australia

Publicity Chairs
Haitao Zhang Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
China
Hongyu Zhang The University of Newcastle, Australia

Publication Chairs
David Cornforth The University of Newcastle, Australia
Shifeng Chen Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Yamin Yan The University of Newcastle, Australia

Award Chair
Minyue Fu The University of Newcastle, Australia

Financial Chair
Raymond Chiong The University of Newcastle, Australia

Invited Session Chairs


Lijun Zhu The University of Hong Kong, SAR China
Aurelio Tergolina Salton PUCRS, Brazil
Yuenkuan Yong The University of Newcastle, Australia
VIII Organization

Local Arrangements Chairs


Mohsen Zamani The University of Newcastle, Australia
Min Xu University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Weihua Li University of Wollongong, Australia

Conference Secretariat
Jayne Disney The University of Newcastle, Australia

Advisory Committee Chairs


Jorge Angeles McGill University, Canada
Tamio Arai University of Tokyo, Japan
Hegao Cai Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Xiang Chen Windsor University, Canada
Gamini Dissanayake University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Toshio Fukuda Nagoya University, Japan
Huosheng Hu University of Essex, UK
Sabina Jeschke RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Yinan Lai National Natural Science Foundation of China, China
Jangmyung Lee Pusan National University, Korea
Ming Li National Natural Science Foundation of China, China
Peter Luh University of Connecticut, USA
Zhongqin Lin Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Brett Ninness The University of Newcastle, Australia
Xinyu Shao Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
China
Xiaobo Tan Michigan State University, USA
Dacheng Tao University of Sydney, Australia
Michael Wang Hong Kong University of Science and Technology,
China
Yang Wang Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Youlun Xiong Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
China
Huayong Yang Zhejiang University, China
Haibin Yu Chinese Academy of Science, China
Contents – Part II

Robot Grasping and Control

A Self-adaptive Robot Finger with a Novel Locking Mechanism


for Adjustable Pre-shaping Angle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Xingming Long and Wenzeng Zhang

Development of a Novel Linear-Parallel Robot Hand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16


Chao Luo and Wenzeng Zhang

Capability Analysis and Optimal Design of Tendon-Driven Cluster-Tube


Self-Adaptive Robot Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Haokun Yang, Hong Fu, and Wenzeng Zhang

A Novel Linearly Parallel and Self-adaptive Robot Hand with the Swing
Slider Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Ruoxuan Jiang, Chao Luo, and Wenzeng Zhang

Design and Analysis of Underactuated Robotic Hand Suitable


for Desktop Grasping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Xiangxiang Wang, Xiangrong Xu, Wenzeng Zhang, and Ke Li

DSCL Hand: A Novel Underactuated Robot Hand of Linearly Parallel


Pinch and Self-adaptive Grasp with Double-Slider Co-circular
Linkage Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Xiaofeng Guo, An Mo, Chao Luo, and Wenzeng Zhang

A Novel Self-adaptive Robot Hand with Pin-array Structure Driven


by Negative Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Hong Fu and Wenzeng Zhang

A Flexible Grasping Policy Based on Simple Robot-Camera Calibration


and Pose Repeatability of Arm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Guowei Cui, Guangda Chen, Zekun Zhang, and Xiaoping Chen

A Universal Gripper Base on Pivoted Pin Array with Chasing Tip . . . . . . . . 100
An Mo, Hong Fu, and Wenzeng Zhang

A Gecko-Inspired Gripper with Controllable Adhesion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112


Zhongyuan Wang, Xiaoyi Liu, Mohong Zheng, Fangfang Zhang,
Qi Zhang, Xiuwan Wang, Stanislav N. Gorb, and Zhendong Dai
X Contents – Part II

Mobile Robotics and Path Planning

Three Dimensional AUV Complete Coverage Path Planning


with Glasius Bio-inspired Neural Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Bing Sun, Xixi Zhu, Wei Zhang, Daqi Zhu, and Zhenzhong Chu

Adaptive Trajectory Tracking Control for Remotely Operated


Vehicles Based on Disturbance Observer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Zhenzhong Chu, Daqi Zhu, and Bing Sun

Error Transformation-Based Accelerated Adaptive Tracking Control


of Uncertain Robotic Manipulators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Kai Zhao

Online Update Siamese Network for Unmanned Surface Vehicle Tracking . . . 159
Kaicheng Gong, Zhiguo Cao, Yang Xiao, and Zhiwen Fang

MPC Control and Path Planning of Omni-Directional Mobile Robot


with Potential Field Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Xiaofeng Liu, Hailin Chen, Chengcheng Wang, Fang Hu,
and Xianqiang Yang

Unified Nonlinear Control for Car-like Mobile Robot 4 Wheels Steering . . . . 182
Mario F. Vargas, Darwin S. Sarzosa, and Víctor H. Andaluz

Collision and Singularity Avoidance Path Planning of 6-DOF


Dual-Arm Manipulator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Dong-Eon Kim, Dong-Ju Park, Jin-Hyun Park, and Jang-Myung Lee

An Adaptive Policy Based Control Framework for Land Vehicle Systems . . . 208
Glen Pearce, Benjamin Campbell, Ant Perry, Brendan Sims,
Mohammad Zamani, Lance Newby, Daniel Nesbitt, Greg Bowering,
Stephen Franklin, and Robert Hunjet

DSP Accelerated Interpolation Using Zero-Padding FFT Algorithm


for High Speed Numerical Control of Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Fei Luo and Weihao Liao

Comparison of Gradeability of a Wheel-Legged Rover in Wheeled


Mode and Wheel-Legged Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Junqiang Zheng, Baofeng Yuan, Zhen Liu, Haibo Gao, Haitao Yu,
Baichao Chen, and Zongquan Deng

A Zone Control Method for Ship Heading Under Wave Disturbance . . . . . . . 246
Xudong Wang, Tao Geng, Zuopeng Chen, and Jin Zhao
Contents – Part II XI

Resonant Gain Scheduling Controller for Spiral Scanning Patterns


in Atomic Force Microscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Matheus S. de Oliveira, Aurélio T. Salton, Jeferson V. Flores,
and Guilherme A. Pimentel

Stationary Random Vibration Analysis of Planetary-Wheeled Robotic


Vehicle Based on Pseudo Excitation Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Yuchuan Lu, Bo Su, and Lei Jiang

Evaluation of Out-of-the-Box ROS 2D SLAMs for Autonomous


Exploration of Unknown Indoor Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Xuan Sang Le, Luc Fabresse, Noury Bouraqadi,
and Guillaume Lozenguez

Enhancing Adaptability of a Legged Walking Robot with Limit-Cycle


Based Local Reflex Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Jun Li, Haitao Yu, Haibo Gao, Lixian Zhang,
and Zongquan Deng

Robotic Vision, Recognition and Reconstruction

A Multi-view Images Generation Method for Object Recognition . . . . . . . . . 313


Zhongxiao Jin, Guowei Cui, Guangda Chen, and Xiaoping Chen

CCDN: Checkerboard Corner Detection Network for Robust


Camera Calibration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Ben Chen, Caihua Xiong, and Qi Zhang

Pedestrian Detection at Night Based on Faster R-CNN and Far


Infrared Images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Michelle A. Galarza-Bravo and Marco J. Flores-Calero

Sea Surface Object Recognition Under the Low-Light Environment . . . . . . . 346


Zihan Yue, Liang Shen, Wei Lin, Wu Lv, Shihao Liu, Tao Geng,
and Jie Ma

Point Pair Features Based Object Recognition with Improved


Training Pipeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Yuke Zhu, Xu Zhang, Limin Zhu, and Yongkai Cai

Complex Water Surface Segmentation with RGBP-FCN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367


Shihao Liu, Quan Chen, Zihan Yue, and Jie Ma

Real-Time Stereo Matching System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377


Angfan Zhu, Zhiguo Cao, and Yang Xiao
XII Contents – Part II

Robot Intelligence and Learning

Iterative Learning Control for Spiral Scanning Patterns in Atomic


Force Microscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Matheus S. de Oliveira and Aurélio T. Salton

Online Versus Offline Reinforcement Learning for False Target


Control Against Known Threat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
Duong D. Nguyen, Arvind Rajagopalan, and Cheng-Chew Lim

A Deep Learnable Framework for 3D Point Clouds Pose


Transformation Regression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Shangyou Ai, Chungang Zhuang, Lei Jia, and Han Ding

A Real-Time Detection Framework for On-Tree Mango Based


on SSD Network. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
Qiaokang Liang, Wei Zhu, Jianyong Long, Yaonan Wang, Wei Sun,
and Wanneng Wu

A Reconfigurable Pick-Place System Under Robot Operating System . . . . . . 437


Cheng Ding, Jianhua Wu, Zhenhua Xiong, and Chao Liu

Review of Research on the Key Technologies, Application Fields


and Development Trends of Intelligent Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Rongshen Lai, Wenguang Lin, and Yongming Wu

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459


Contents – Part I

A Critique of Observers Used in the Context of Feedback Control . . . . . . . . 1


Graham C. Goodwin

Multi-agent Systems and Distributed Control

Semi-global Leaderless Consensus of Circular Motion


with Input Saturation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Bowen Xu, Haofei Meng, Duxin Chen, and Hai-Tao Zhang

Some Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Consensus


of Fractional-Order Multi-agent Systems with Input Delay
and Sampled Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Yanyan Ye, Housheng Su, Tao Geng, Xudong Wang, and Zuopeng Chen

A Brief Overview of Flocking Control for Multi-agent Systems . . . . . . . . . . 48


Yaping Sun, Zhaojing Wang, Housheng Su, and Tao Geng

Optimizing Pinning Control of Directed Networks Using Spectral


Graph Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Xuanhong Xu, Hui Liu, Jun-An Lu, and Jiangqiao Xu

A Novel Variable-Gain Rectilinear or Circular Formation Algorithm


for Unicycle Type Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Shuai Wang, Jiahu Qin, Qingchen Liu, and Yu Kang

State Estimation for Swarm UAVs Under Data Dropout Condition . . . . . . . . 81


Hongzhe Yu, Weifan Zhang, Xinjun Sheng, and Wei Dong

Virtual-Datum Based Cooperative Kinematic Constraints Analysis


for Dual-Robotic System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Qi Fan, Zeyu Gong, Bo Tao, and Jianlan Li

Distributed Hunting for Multi USVs Based on Cyclic Estimation


and Pursuit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Binbin Hu, Bin Liu, Zhecheng Xu, Tao Geng, Ye Yuan,
and Hai-Tao Zhang

The Wireless Communications for Unmanned Surface Vehicle:


An Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Junfeng Ge, Tao Li, and Tao Geng
XIV Contents – Part I

PolyMap: A 2D Polygon-Based Map Format for Multi-robot Autonomous


Indoor Localization and Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Johann Dichtl, Luc Fabresse, Guillaume Lozenguez,
and Noury Bouraqadi

Improved Input-to-State Stability Analysis of Discrete-Time


Time-Varying Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Tianrui Zhao, Lili Jia, and Weiwei Luo

Optimal Control Problem for Discrete-Time Markov Jump Systems


with Indefinite Weight Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Hongdan Li, Chunyan Han, and Huanshui Zhang

Human-Machine Interaction

Stretchable Tactile and Bio-potential Sensors for Human-Machine


Interaction: A Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Wentao Dong, YongAn Huang, Zhouping Yin, Yuyu Zhou,
and Jiankui Chen

Hand Detection and Location Based on Improved SSD for Space


Human-Robot Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Qing Gao, Jinguo Liu, Zhaojie Ju, Lu Zhang, Yangmin Li,
and Yuwang Liu

An Intuitive Robot Learning from Human Demonstration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176


Uchenna Emeoha Ogenyi, Gongyue Zhang, Chenguang Yang,
Zhaojie Ju, and Honghai Liu

Deep Reinforcement Learning Based Collision Avoidance Algorithm


for Differential Drive Robot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Xinglong Lu, Yiwen Cao, Zhonghua Zhao, and Yilin Yan

A Novel Redundant Continuum Manipulator with Variable


Geometry Trusses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Wenxiang Zhao and Wenzeng Zhang

Rehabilitation Robotics

Signal Compression Method Based Heart Rate Model Estimation


and SMCSPO Control for Cardiac Rehabilitation with Treadmill. . . . . . . . . . 215
Hyun Hee Kim, Hwan Young Kim, Hong Ying Lee,
and Min Cheol Lee

Measurement and Analysis of Upper Limb Reachable Workspace


for Post-stroke Patients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Jing Bai and Aiguo Song
Contents – Part I XV

A Multi-channel EMG-Driven FES Solution for Stroke Rehabilitation . . . . . . 235


Yu Zhou, Yinfeng Fang, Jia Zeng, Kairu Li, and Honghai Liu

A Common Prosthetic Rehabilitation Platform Based on Modular Design . . . 244


Dehong Hao, Bo Lv, Sensen Liu, Xinjun Sheng, and Xiangyang Zhu

Comparative Analysis of Surface Electromyography Features on Bilateral


Upper Limbs for Stroke Evaluation: A Preliminary Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Hongze Jiang, Yang Li, Yu Zhou, and Honghai Liu

Multi-length Windowed Feature Selection for Surface EMG Based Hand


Motion Recognition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
Dalin Zhou, Yinfeng Fang, Zhaojie Ju, and Honghai Liu

Industrial Robot and Robot Manufacturing

Posture Optimization Based on Both Joint Parameter Error and Stiffness


for Robotic Milling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
He Xie, Wenlong Li, and Zhouping Yin

A Robotic Belt Grinding Force Model to Characterize the Grinding


Depth with Force Control Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Xiaohu Xu, Yifan Yang, Gaofeng Pan, Dahu Zhu, and Sijie Yan

A Boundary Auto-Location Algorithm for the Prediction of Milling


Stability Lobe Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Mingkai Zhang, Xiaowei Tang, Rong Yan, Fangyu Peng, Chen Chen,
Yuting Li, and Haohao Zeng

Deformation Error Prediction and Compensation for Robot


Multi-axis Milling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Xiaowei Tang, Rong Yan, Fangyu Peng, Guangyu Liu, Hua Li,
Dequan Wei, and Zheng Fan

Chatter Detection Based on ARMAX Model-Based Monitoring Method


in Thin Wall Turning Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Yang Liu and Zhenhua Xiong

Out-of-Plane Vibration Frequency Estimation for Flexible Substrate


in Roll-to-Roll Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Jiankui Chen, Yufei Zhu, Hua Yang, Yongan Huang,
and Zhouping Yin

Digital Template System for Measuring Turbine Blade Forging


and Its Calibration Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Yongkai Cai, Xu Zhang, Zelong Zheng, Limin Zhu, and Yuke Zhu
XVI Contents – Part I

A Teaching System for Serial Robots Under ROS-I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354


Tengfei Shan, Cheng Ding, Chao Liu, ChunGang Zhuang, Jianhua Wu,
and Zhenhua Xiong

Real-Time HALCON-Based Pose Measurement System for an Astronaut


Assistant Robot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
Lihong Dai, Jinguo Liu, Zhaojie Ju, and Yuwang Liu

Control of a Mechanically Compliant Joint with Proportional-Integral-


Retarded (PIR) Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Xixian Mo, Feng Jiang, Wenhui Wang, Bo Zhang, and Ye Ding

Sensors and Actuators

Intelligent Control of Variable Ranging Sensor Array Using Multi-objective


Behavior Coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
Sasuga Kitai, Yuichiro Toda, Naoyuki Takesue, Kazuyoshi Wada,
and Naoyuki Kubota

Research on the Estimation of Sensor Bias and Parameters of Load


Based on Force-Feedback. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
Nianfeng Wang, Jianbin Zhou, and Xianmin Zhang

A Novel Framework for Coverage Optimization of Sensor Network . . . . . . . 414


Rui Xu, Li Chai, and Xi Chen

Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Control of Pneumatic Muscle Actuator . . . . . . . . . . . 423


Xiang Huang, Hai-Tao Zhang, Dongrui Wu, and Lijun Zhu

Sliding-Mode Control of Soft Bending Actuator Based on Optical


Waveguide Sensor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
Chenglong Liu, Wenbin Chen, and Caihua Xiong

Design and Experiment of a Fast-Soft Pneumatic Actuator with High


Output Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
Amin Lotfiani, Xili Yi, Zhao Qinzhi, Zhufeng Shao, and Liping Wang

A Pulse Condition Reproduction Apparatus for Remote Traditional


Chinese Medicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
Sensen Liu, Lei Hua, Pengyu Lv, Yang Yu, Yiqing Gao,
and Xinjun Sheng

A Feasibility Study on an Intuitive Teleoperation System Combining IMU


with sEMG Sensors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Heng Zhang, Zeming Zhao, Yang Yu, Kai Gui, Xinjun Sheng,
and Xiangyang Zhu
Contents – Part I XVII

Data-Driven Modeling of a Coupled Electric Drives System Using


Regularized Basis Function Volterra Kernels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
Jeremy G. Stoddard and James S. Welsh

A Novel On-Machine Measurement Method Based on the Force Controlled


Touch Probe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
Hao Li, Huan Zhao, and Han Ding

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499


Robot Grasping and Control
A Self-adaptive Robot Finger with a Novel
Locking Mechanism for Adjustable
Pre-shaping Angle

Xingming Long1 and Wenzeng Zhang2(&)


1
School of Aerospace, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University,
Beijing 100084, China
wenzeng@tsinghua.edu.cn

Abstract. Under-actuated hand’s ability to adapt to the shape of objects greatly


improves the grasping efficiency. However, due to its structure, it has a defect
that the grasping trajectory is fixed. Although the robot hand based on joint
locking mechanism can solve the problem, it still has the problem of disconti-
nuity of locking angle and that influences the grasping stability. Based on the
existing robot hand, this paper proposed a robot hand with a novel locking
mechanism. It can change the grasping trajectory to adjust the pre-shaping
angle, increasing the range of grasping. And it can control the joint continu-
ously, which improves the stability of use.

Keywords: Robot hand  Self-adaptive  Pre-shaping  Joint locking

1 Introduction

With about twenty degrees of freedom, hand is the most flexible part of our body. It can
perform all kinds of work in different environments. With the development of tech-
nology, people hope to use mechanical structure to achieve the functions of human
hands, so that it can replace human and complete all kinds of work. Therefore, the
study on the robot hand has become an essential part in the robotic field. How to realize
the control of the various degrees of freedom of the robot hand, to make it achieve the
flexibility of the human hand, is currently the problem concerned by the engineers who
study the robot hand.
A solution is to install actuators for each joint of the robot hand, that is, to make the
number of actuators equal to the number of fingers’ degrees of freedom (DOF). It is
called the dexterous hand. For examples, there were Shadow Hand [1], and DLR-HIT
hand II [2]. Theoretically, this type of robotic hand can realize the control of each joint,
and they can do the same as the human hands. However, the control of the actuators is
far from reaching the dexterity of human hands. At the same time, the large number of
actuators and sensors make these hands large in size and complicated in structure. So
their practical application value is not high.
Another solution is to let the hand adapt to the shape of the object by itself. The
robot hands have self-adaptive ability and the fingers can envelope the object after

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018


Z. Chen et al. (Eds.): ICIRA 2018, LNAI 10985, pp. 3–15, 2018.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97589-4_1
4 X. Long and W. Zhang

contacting the objects. This greatly improves the grasping efficiency of the robot hands.
There are two ways to achieve that.
One of the ideas is to use the characteristics of the actuators to envelope the objects.
Some people have tried pneumatic actuators [3]. And others used electro-conjugate
fluid to drive [4]. However, these types of hands have the problem of slow response
speed and low capture accuracy, and they still require much research before they can be
put into practical use. Though there have been research to reduce the response time [5],
complex compressor devices are also a problem.
The other idea is called under-actuated hand. A classic example of under-actuated
hand is SARAH hand [6]. And it is improved later [7]. However, the fingers of the
robot hand is kept up straight before contacting with the objects, which makes it
unsatisfactory for grasping the unknown moving objects. After the object comes into
contact with the finger, it will rebound and get out of the control.
To capture the unknown objects, someone installed sensors for the under-actuated
hand [8]. So the robot can determine the position of the object and adjust the corre-
sponding position of the hand. However, the device just simply combines the sensors
with the under-actuated system, and the efficiency is not high.
According to the actual grasping mode of the human hand, as shown in Fig. 1a, the
concept of pre-shaping is proposed. There are hands [9, 10] using the mechanical
structure. And there is hand [11] designed with tendon, as shown in Fig. 1b. The pre-
shaping mode can achieve the pre-enveloping of the in-hand space, and thus has a high
grasping efficiency for the moving objects. Also, this type of hand has good anthro-
pomorphism. However, since the grasping trajectory of the finger is determined, it will
always crawl by the same pre-shaping trajectory, which reduces the grasping range.

Fig. 1. Pre-shaping of human hand and its adapt in robot finger

Afterwards, a dexterous hand using string to drive with the joint locking mecha-
nism was proposed [12]. Compared to the former tendon-driven robotic hand, this hand
can lock its shafts so that the fingers can bend by different trajectories, increasing the
A Self-adaptive Robot Finger with a Novel Locking Mechanism 5

Fig. 2. Increasing of grasping range with the control of locking mechanism

grasping range, as shown in Fig. 2. However, due to the ratchet device, it leads to a
discontinuity in the rotation angle, and there is also a problem in releasing the joint.
Based on the advantages and disadvantages of each robot hand, this paper proposed
a robot hand that can change the angle of pre-shaping. Besides, the design of the new
joint locking mechanism can solve the problem of locking discontinuity and make it
more stable for grasping. With the adjustment of the rotary shaft, grasping control of
the entire finger is achieved.

2 Mechanisms for the Proposed Robot Hand

2.1 Structure of the Finger


The schematic is shown in Fig. 3.
The first and the second sections of the finger are connected so that they can rotate
synchronously. The tendon is shown on the left. Pulling the tendon through a motor
located in the palm, the entire finger will bend. Torsion springs are installed on each
shaft to allow the entire finger to return to the initial state.
The locking device is located on the second shaft and it includes a small motor, a
worm gear located, a locking device and a rotary wheel. The device is used to change
the angle of pre-shaping and control the unlocking of the shaft. Through the worm gear,
the small motor can control the rotation of the wheel to set the function of the entire
locking system.

2.2 The Locking Mechanism


The principle of the locking mechanism is shown in Fig. 4. A groove on the rotary
wheel is opposite to the locking device (red part in the figure).
6 X. Long and W. Zhang

Fig. 3. Structure of the proposed finger

Fig. 4. Principle of the locking mechanism (Color figure online)

When the mechanism is at the initial state, as indicated by Fig. 4a, the left side of
the groove is contacted with the locking device. If the tendon is pulled at the time, the
pre-shaping angle will be zero. And the entire finger will remain upright.
When the rotating wheel is turned h by the small motor, the upper sections of the
finger can bend at an angle of h now, as shown in Fig. 4b. Stretched by the tendon, the
upper sections will bend. After the bending angle reaches h, the second shaft will be
locked, as shown in Fig. 4c. Then the upper sections cannot rotate anymore and the
angle of pre-shaping is set.
The device can realize the function of adjusting the angle of pre-shaping.

2.3 Strength Control and Self-adaptation


To achieve the strength control and self-adaptation. Pressure sensors are set on the
fingertips and the surface of third finger section. If the finger is in contact with the
A Self-adaptive Robot Finger with a Novel Locking Mechanism 7

object during the pre-shaping state, as shown in Fig. 5, the force on the fingertip can be
adjusted by the signal from the fingertip pressure sensor.

Fig. 5. Contacting of sensor at the pre-shaping stage

If the finger does not contact with the object during the pre-shaping state, the
second shaft is locked by the locking device and the finger enters the adaptive grasping
stage, as shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 6. Control of grasping at the self-adaptive stage

At this time, the entire finger rotates around the third rotation shaft until the third
section contact with the object, as shown in Fig. 6b. Then, the sensor located on the
surface will obtain a pressure signal, thereby feedback controlling the rotation of the
small motor to release the lock of the second shaft.
Thereafter, the third section will remain in contact with the object while the first and
the second sections will rotate together until contact with the object, completing the
process of adaptive enveloping, as shown in Fig. 6c. When the fingertip comes into
contact with the object, fingertip pressure sensor can be used to further control the
grasping force.
It is worth to mention that, during the self-adaptive stage, the deformation of the
torsion spring on the third rotating shaft will continue to increase, so as the torque it
provides. At the same time, the torsion spring on the second axis remains unchanged.
8 X. Long and W. Zhang

If the lock on the second shaft is quickly released, the torque provided by the torsion
spring on the third shaft will exceed the torque required for balance. Due to the
characteristics of the tendon drive, the finger will rebound, as shown in Fig. 7. This is a
big problem in the design of a robotic finger driven by tendon.

Fig. 7. Phenomenon of rebounding of the finger

However, in the device designed in this paper, the lock of the second shaft is slowly
released by gradually turning the wheel. And during this period, the motor at the base
can pull the tendon and keep the surface of the third section in contact with the object.
Through this way, the mechanism can effectively avoid the problem of finger rebound
and grasp the object stably.

2.4 Design of Finger Control System


The robotic manipulator of the device uses a MCU for the overall control. The output
of the pressure sensor is connected to the MCU. With the signal processed, the small
motor in the corresponding finger is controlled to respond quickly, and the motor in the
base is controlled to output a reasonable power.
By setting the program on the MCU, the following functions are realized: For a
pressure sensor located on the surface of the finger, when the signal output from the
pressure sensor reaches a preset threshold, the small motor is controlled to start
rotating. For the pressure sensor located at the fingertip, when the fingertip pressure
sensor output a pressure signal of zero, the MCU controls the base motor to rotate at the
maximum speed; when the fingertip pressure signal gradually increases, the MCU
controls the output of the base motor to decrease gradually; When the signal output
from the fingertip pressure sensor reaches a preset threshold, the MCU controls the
base motor and the small motor to stop rotating.
With the control system, the grasped objects can be prevented from being damaged
due to excessive grasping force. And at the same time, the motor can be protected from
being damaged.
A Self-adaptive Robot Finger with a Novel Locking Mechanism 9

3 Analysis of the Robot Finger


3.1 Establishment of the Mechanical Model
During the bending process, due to the slow bending speed of the finger, the inertial
force can be neglected. So the mechanical model is established and the calculation is as
follows.
The simplified finger model is shown in Fig. 8. Ignoring the friction, the tension in
the tendon is T, the tension in the string is T0, and the torque generated by the springs
on the three shafts is M1, M2, M3, respectively. The distance between the second and
the third rotating shafts to the nearest tendon is h2, h3, and the angle between the first
and the second sections is h1, the angle between the second and the third sections is h2,
the angle between the third section and the base is h3. The initial angle of the two
slopes between the third section and the base is U3, and the initial angle of the two
slopes between the second section and the third section is U2 (not shown in the figure).
The fingertip receives a force of F2 perpendicular to its rear plane, and the third section
receives a force of F1 perpendicular to the surface.

Fig. 8. Force analysis of a finger

Thus, the distance from the third shaft and the second shaft to the tendon are

L3 ¼ h3 cosððu3  h3 Þ=2Þ ð1Þ

L2 ¼ h2 cosððu3  h3 Þ=2Þ ð2Þ

When finger is balanced, the following analysis can be done.


Because the first and the second shaft are connected by a string, the first and the
second sections can rotate synchronously, so the force of the first and the second
section can be considered as a whole. And then work on the force analysis

TL2 ¼ M2 þ F2 ðs2 cos h1 + s1 Þ þ T0 R2 ð3Þ

T0 R1 ¼ M1 ð4Þ
10 X. Long and W. Zhang

M 2 ¼ k2 h2 ð5Þ

M 1 ¼ k1 h1 ð6Þ

Where k1 and k2 are the elastic coefficient of the torsion spring at the first and the
second shaft, s2 is the distance from the first shaft to the second shaft, and s1 is the
vertical distance from the force F2 to the first shaft, R1 and R2 are the radius of the first
and the second shaft. In this prototype, the elastic coefficient of the torsion spring and
the radius of the first shaft are equal to the second shaft. And from the coupling
relationship brought by the string, the first shaft rotates synchronously with the second
shaft. Then, the relationship of them is

k1 ¼ k 2 ð7Þ

R1 ¼ R2 ð8Þ

h1 ¼ h 2 ð9Þ

Thus, when the pressure on the fingertip is F2, the relationship between the tension
T and the rotation angle h2 can be obtained.

2k2 h2 þ F2 ðs2 cos h2 þ s1 Þ


T¼ ð10Þ
h2 cosððu2  h2 Þ=2Þ

Considering the moment balance on the third shaft, the equation is got

1
TL3 ¼ M3 þ F1 s3 þ F2 ðs3 cosðh1 þ h2 Þ þ s2 cos h1 þ s1 Þ ð11Þ
2
M 3 ¼ k3 h3 ð12Þ

Where k3 is the elastic coefficient of the torsion spring at the third shaft, and s3 is
the distance from the second shaft to the third shaft. Thus, the relationship between the
tension T and the rotation angle h2, h3 can be obtained.

k3 h3 þ 12 F1 s3 þ F2 ðs3 cos 2h2 þ s2 cos h2 þ s1 Þ


T¼ ð13Þ
h3 cosððu3  h3 Þ=2Þ

From the above results, the movement of the finger at each stage is obtained.

3.2 Analysis of Pre-shaping Stage


At this point, the rotating shaft is free to rotate, and the force F1 on the third section is
zero. So the equation turns to be
A Self-adaptive Robot Finger with a Novel Locking Mechanism 11

2k2 h2
T¼ ð14Þ
h2 cosððu2  h2 Þ=2Þ

k3 h3
T¼ ð15Þ
h3 cosððu3  h3 Þ=2Þ

With these two formulas, the relationship between the rotation angle h2 and h3 can
be obtained, so that the trajectory of the finger in the pre-shaping stage can be
calculated.
And when the pre-shaping angle h is fixed, the start and end position of the finger
are known and the trajectory can be drawn.

3.3 Analysis of Self-adaptive Stage


In the self-adaptive stage, when the surface of the third section is not in contact with the
object, the second shaft is locked and the pre-shaping angle is h.

h2 ¼ h ð16Þ

Also, considering the moment balance of the third shaft at this time

k3 h3
T¼ ð17Þ
h3 cosððu3  h3 Þ=2Þ

And trajectory of the finger is worked out.


When the third section is in close contact with the object, it will remain stationary
due to the control characteristics of the finger, and the upper section will rotate about
the second rotation axis. So the trajectory of the finger movement at this stage can be
determined.

3.4 Force Analysis on the Locking Mechanism


When the locking mechanism is working, the small motor will receive the torque from
the locking device. Now consider the magnitude of this torque.
In this case, when the adaptive stage does not in contact with the object, the
moment balance analysis is performed on the second rotating shaft, and the locking
0
device brings the moment of M2 to the upper sections, as shown in Fig. 9.
The equations can be listed
0
2k2 h2 þ M2
T¼ ð18Þ
h2 cosððu2  h2 Þ=2Þ
0
M2 ¼ NMm ð19Þ
12 X. Long and W. Zhang

Fig. 9. The moment from the locking device on the upper sections

Where N is the reduction ratio of the worm gear and Mm is the torque applied to the
small motor. By combining the two equations and the Eq. (17), the relationship
between the torque received on the small motor and the angle of the finger turning is
obtained.

(a) F2 as a function of θ2 and θ3

(b) Mm as a function of θ2 and θ3

Fig. 10. Results from the matlab


A Self-adaptive Robot Finger with a Novel Locking Mechanism 13

3.5 Force Simulation Results


According to the mechanical model, the simulation results are shown in Fig. 10, where
Fig. 10a shows the relationship between the grabbing force and the rotation angle, and
Fig. 10b shows the relationship between the torque received on the small motor and the
rotation angle.
According to Fig. 10a, the robot finger has a good grasping stability and can
provide a sufficiently large grasping force.
And from Fig. 10b, it can be seen that with the bending of the finger, the torque on
the small motor keeps small and this is in line with the expectations of design.

4 Design of the Proposed Hand

According to the above principles, this paper designed the locking mechanism in
Solidworks as shown in Fig. 11.
The red part in the figure is the locking device in the design. The blue part that is in
contact with the locking device is the wheel on the second shaft. The white part of the
figure shows the design of the worm gear mechanism.
When the locking mechanism is at the initial state, as shown in Fig. 11a, the pre-
shaping angle is zero degrees. The small motor can control the angle by the worm gear,
as shown in Fig. 11b. After the upper part of the finger rotates through the pre-shaping
angle, the locking device cooperates with the rotating wheel to lock the shaft, as shown
in Fig. 11c. Finally, the wheel can be controlled by the small motor and the lock of the
shaft can be gradually released as shown in Fig. 11d.

Fig. 11. Locking mechanism designed in solidworks (Color figure online)

Based on the locking device mentioned above, the prototype is designed and built
with 3D printer.
With the prototype, the results of grasping test are shown in Fig. 12.
When the pre-shaping angle of the prototype is not set, the grasping mode of the finger
is shown as Fig. 12a, and the finger keeps upright until it in contact with the object. Then
the finger realizes the self-adaptive enveloping. When the pre-shaping angle is set at first,
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Alexander II. vacillated between the two antagonistic forces which
wrestle for mastery in Russia: the party of progress and freedom and
the party of reaction and despotism. Devoid of initiative and strength
of purpose himself, this amiable ruler was led now to right, now to
left. The disasters of the Crimean War had already shown that
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she ought at least to secure domestic prosperity. The
1855
party of progress carried the day, and the Emperor
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repentance, but left the task to his son. As early as 1856 Alexander
II. had a plan of a Constitution drawn up; but the design was
postponed owing to more pressing needs. The years 1861–1864,
however, witnessed the emancipation of the serfs, the abolition of
the terrible corporal punishment by the knout, the institution of the
zemstvos, or provincial assemblies, and other measures of reform
which awakened the hopes and the enthusiasm of the Russian
people. Svobodnaya Rossia—Free Russia—was on every man’s
lips. A new era had dawned for the cowering masses of the Empire.
The Polish rebellion diverted this enthusiasm from
1863
internal reform to the defence of the Fatherland against
its hereditary enemy, who, it was suspected, was aided by some
foreign powers.
Military success abroad presupposes union at home, and union
often means the sacrifice of the individual and his interests and
rights. This common historical phenomenon now received a fresh
illustration. Victory took away all the blessings conferred by defeat.
The Poles were crushed, and with them the budding liberty of the
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annihilation of the supposed enemy of their country, were unwittingly
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defeat of the Poles decided the struggle in favour of despotism, all
schemes of constitutional reform were abandoned, and Alexander
II.’s reign closed as Alexander I.’s had done: in a craven recantation
of the principles which had distinguished its beginning. This
backsliding created bitter disappointment in the hearts of all Russian
friends of liberty, and drove the more desperate among them to the
declaration of a war which culminated in the unfortunate monarch’s
murder. The crime of the Nihilists, however, defeated
1881 March 1
3 its own object and ruined the cause it was meant to
serve. At the very moment of his death the Czar was
actually meditating a plan for some form of representative
government, to begin with the convocation of an Assembly of
Notables. The intention died with him. Henceforth the relations
between the Government and the governed are more than ever
154
marked by mutual distrust. The assassination of the humane
Emperor, far from weakening, strengthened the hands of the
champions of autocracy and intolerance, and these champions were
reinforced by the advocates of Nationalism or Panslavism—a
movement which, like Nihilism, derives its theories from modern
Teutonic speculation, but applies them after a primitive fashion
purely Russian.
Russian national consciousness is a recent growth. It sprang up
at the beginning of the nineteenth century under the stimulus of
Napoleon’s invasion. Hatred of the foreign invader brought patriotism
into being, and the exultation of victory forced it to precocious
maturity. The Polish rebellions of 1830 and 1863 assisted its
development, which was also accelerated by the spread of education
and the growth of the press. The extreme partisans of the Nationalist
idea, henceforth the ruling body in the Empire, were imbued with the
conviction that the preservation of the Russian nation required the
forcible assimilation or, failing that, the utter extermination of all that
is not Russian. Under the fell influence of that conviction a
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preceding century. After the complete subjugation of the Poles—
brought about by Muravieff in a manner which earned him the title of
“Hangman of Warsaw”—came the turn of the inhabitants of the Baltic
provinces, who, partly German by blood, had long adopted the
German tongue, German culture, and German ideals, and who since
their conquest by the Russians, in the eighteenth century, had
furnished the Empire with some of its best statesmen, warriors, and
scientists. The Panslavic zeal for assimilation was intensified by the
fear of German expansion. Prussia by her brilliant war against
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completed by the war, even more brilliant, against France in 1870,
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provinces, was carried away by the Panslavic current, which gained
further strength from the national conflict with Turkey in 1877.
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thanks to the industry of MM. Pobiedonostseff, Katkoff,
and Count Ignatieff, and the indecision of their Liberal opponents,
gave way to one of reaction in all directions. In administrative
matters Alexander III., despite the advice of so firm a believer in the
divine origin of kingship as the German Emperor William I., reverted
to the methods of his own grandfather, Nicholas I.: the press
censorship was revived, the village communes were placed under
the absolute power of the police, flogging was restored as an
instrument of “educating” the peasants; and the very mention of the
Czar Liberator’s name became a punishable offence. At the same
time the work of Russification proceeded, and side by side with the
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1880–1890
institutions and language of the Baltic provinces;
Panorthodoxy stamped out their heretical and schismatic doctrines.
The Holy Synod in 1893, inspired by the Imperial Procurator, M.
Pobiedonostseff—who, though a layman, wielded an absolute
control over the Russian Church and was by his opponents
nicknamed “Lay Pope”—demanded the suppression of Protestants,
Roman Catholics, Mohammedans, Buddhists, and other dissenters
throughout the Empire. The thirteen years of Alexander III.’s reign
form one of the gloomiest pages in a history not remarkable for
brightness.
1894 Comparative tolerance followed upon the Czar’s
death, and high hopes were built on the reputed
liberality of his successor, Nicholas II. But these hopes have never
been fulfilled. On the contrary, obscurantism continued to reign
supreme, and of late years the Panslavist and Panorthodox
programme has been vigorously pursued in the Caucasus, in
Poland, and in Finland, as well as among the Buddhists of the trans-
Baikalian district. In all these provinces national institutions have
been attacked with a remorseless fury and a brutal thoroughness
worthy of the Inquisition in its worst days. The Armenian Church was
155
plundered, and Russian bishops were inflicted upon a population
whose language they did not understand. The Tartars, once loyal
and contented, were roused to appeal to the Sultan of Turkey and
the Western Powers for relief from the tyranny of the Czar. In their
petition these Russian Mohammedans describe how their religious
tribunals have been suppressed, how their children are forced into
Russian schools, how when serving in the army they are made to eat
food condemned by the law of Islam, and how they are compelled to
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observe Christian festivals and to abandon their faith. But in no
part of the Empire was more systematically repeated the process
which, under Alexander III., had achieved the Russification of the
Baltic provinces than in Finland. Nothing more inhuman or more
insane than Russia’s treatment of that country has been known in
Europe since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. The
constitution of Finland, which Alexander I. on annexing the country in
1809 had solemnly pledged himself to respect, was abolished; its
press was silenced; its University degraded; its religion trampled
under foot; its best men were banished; and all means
1899–1903
were employed in the patriotic endeavour to grind
down this highly cultured, but non-Slavonic and non-Orthodox,
province of the north to the level of the rest of the Empire; with the
result that the most loyal and prosperous section of the Czar’s
subjects has been turned into the most disloyal and miserable. Thus
Germans, Esthonians, Poles, Finns, Circassians, Georgians,
Armenians, Mongols, Tartars—all have experienced the Russian
rage for uniformity national and religious; and so have even
dissenters of Russian blood, like the Old Believers and the
Dukhobors, not to mention the Polish and Lithuanian Uniates, whose
churches have been confiscated and converted to other uses, whose
clergy has been suppressed, and who are forced, under severe
penalties, to worship, to be married and buried, and to have their
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children christened according to the rites of the Orthodox Church.
Tyranny is a plant that can only flourish in darkness. The press
is, therefore, gagged, public meetings are severely prohibited, and
both Church and State assiduously discourage the education of the
masses. Elementary schools are insufficient and inefficient, while
private initiative is jealously forbidden to supplement the
shortcomings of public instruction. The Government does not provide
for the people, and will not allow it to provide for itself. The
authorities at Moscow have been known to prohibit even factory
owners from keeping elementary schools for the improvement of
their working people. When such is the state of things in the greatest
industrial centre of the Empire, it is not hard to imagine the
conditions which prevail in the remote country districts with their dull
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agricultural population. Hence the necessity for employing
foreigners in every department of commercial and industrial life. The
success of the foreigner, however, arouses the jealousy of the
native, and Russian economists are apt to attribute to the
predominance of the former that wretchedness of the Russian
masses, which is mainly due to their defective education. Under the
circumstances, it is not surprising to find that the Jews suffer as
grievously as they did in the Middle Ages. The hostility of a people
still barbarous in all essentials has always succeeded in defeating
the good intentions of the best Czars, and in heightening the horrors
consequent on the despotic temper of the worst. If the treatment of
Israel in various countries may be taken as an index to their
respective progress on the road to civilisation, Russia must be
pronounced as standing at this hour where England stood in the
thirteenth century.
In 1881 a violent outbreak of anti-Jewish feeling, encouraged by
the Nationalist newspapers, on one hand, and by the Nihilists on the
other, led to much bloodshed and to the destruction of Jewish
property and life in the southern and western provinces of Russia,
especially in Russian Poland. Many causes contributed to the
explosion. For years past, indeed since the abolition of serfdom, the
peasantry, especially in South Russia, had been deteriorating both
materially and morally. A contemporary observer thus describes the
state of things on the eve of the event: “The bad harvests in the
succession of years immediately preceding 1881, and the
accompanying ravages of a virulent and widespread cattle plague,
have completed the misery which idleness and improvidence were
steadily producing; and the removal of restraint, the separation of
families, and the assemblage of large numbers of the most ignorant
classes amid the strange scenes of town and camp life, have
unsettled their minds and degraded their morals.” After relating the
effect of these conditions on the relations between peasant and
landlord, the writer proceeds to explain some of the causes of the
peasant’s ill-feeling towards the Jew. “Besides the landlord, there is
another class in the south and west by whom the peasant thinks that
he has been defrauded. The Jews, whom Government restrictions
prevent from becoming agriculturists, and who are debarred from
accepting employment in any ordinary industrial establishment, by
the fact of their Sabbath limiting them to four and a half days of
labour during the Christian week, have from necessity turned their
attention almost exclusively to trade. The improvidence of the
agriculturist and his want of capital have rendered the assistance of
a money-lender and middleman an absolute necessity to him, and
this requirement has been naturally supplied by the presence of the
Jew, whose sobriety, thrift, energy, and commercial instincts render
him especially fit for the vocation. The more improvident the
peasantry, the greater are the immediate profits of the Jews, and
whilst the former have become steadily impoverished, many of the
latter have acquired comparative wealth. There is nothing
astonishing, therefore, in the ill-feeling which has arisen towards the
Jews, and that ill-feeling has been accompanied by the persuasion
that there must be a special injustice in the superior material
prosperity of a race whom the Government, by penal legislation, had
emphatically marked out as inferior to the Christians. Religious
fanaticism is almost unknown in Russia, and indifferentism is rather
the rule among a peasantry which lives in amity with Mahommedans,
Roman Catholics, and Lutherans alike; but it requires a strong hand
to restrain a semi-civilized and poverty-stricken people from
attacking and plundering their richer and defenceless neighbours.
The Government did not show this strong hand in defence of the
Jews, and political agitators eagerly fanned the flame of animosity
against the alien race, and saw with pleasure the spread of
disturbances which would either lead to a collision between the
people and the authorities, or open the eyes of the masses to the
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weakness of the latter, and to their own strength.”
The venerable charge of ritual murder was once more brought
against the Jews, and within a few weeks all the provinces from the
Baltic to the Black Sea were a theatre of arson, rapine, and
slaughter, such as Europe had not witnessed since the tragedy of
the Black Death in the fourteenth century. The civilised world
shuddered at the appalling spectacle; but the local authorities, both
civil and military, looked, for the most part, complacently on. The
peasantry, having slaked their thirst for vengeance, plunder, rape,
and gin, by sacking the Jewish houses, drinking shops, and brothels,
proceeded to embody their grievances against the Jew in the
following series of demands:
1. “That Jews, members of town councils and provincial
assemblies, vice-directors of town banks, members of different
institutions and committees, should voluntarily give up their present
posts, casting off the cloak of pride and braggadocio; as persons not
possessing civic honesty, they are unfit to hold such places.
2. “That the Jews should impress on their wives and daughters
not to deck themselves out in silk, velvet, gold, etc., as such attire is
neither in keeping with their education nor the position they hold in
society.
3. “That the Jews should dismiss from their service all Russian
female servants, who, after living in Jewish houses, certainly
become prostitutes, forget their religion, and who are intentionally
depraved by the Jews.
4. “To banish, without delay, all Jews belonging to other places
who do not possess any real property in town.
5. “To close all drinking shops.
6. “To forbid Jews to abuse the Christians, and, in general, to
scoff at them.
7. “To prohibit Jews from buying up in the markets the first
necessaries of life with the intention of selling them to the Russians.
8. “To impress on wholesale dealers in spirits not to mix with
vodka any foreign element which is sometimes injurious to health.
9. “Not to trade on the Sabbath before noon, and at Christmas
and Easter not to trade for three days, and not to work on our
holidays.
10. “To prohibit Jews buying wheat for trading purposes within
thirty versts of the town of Pereyaslav, and therefore to remove all
existing grain and flour stores.
11. “To prohibit Jews from buying up uncut wheat; also to lease
land from private individuals.
12. “The Town Council is begged not to let, and the Jews not to
hire, the grounds at fairs and at marketplaces, with the object of
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farming them out.”
No better proof of the mediaeval character of the Russian
peasant’s mind could be desired than that furnished by the above
document. Even so hearty an apologist of that peasant as Mr.
Goldwin Smith finds himself compelled to remark that these
demands “by their grotesque mixture of real and fancied grievances,
remind us of the demands made by the ignorant, but suffering,
peasants of the Middle Ages.” Their demand that the Jews should be
forced “to cast off the cloak of pride and braggadocio,” has its exact
parallel in the complaints of the Spanish bigots laid before Don
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Henry in 1371.
But the feeling which found so terrible an expression was by no
means confined to the lower and illiterate classes of the community.
The crime itself was attributed to the deliberate policy of Count
Ignatieff. A high-bred and accomplished Russian lady, a few months
after the massacres, described the general attitude of her
compatriots towards the Jews in very fluent English, as follows:
—“Well, we do not like the Jews, that is a fact; and the dislike is
reciprocal. But the reason we do not like them is not because of their
speculative monotheism, but because of their practical heathenism.
To us they are what the relics of the Amorites and Canaanites were
to the Hebrews in old times—a debased and demoralized element
which is alien to our national life, and a source of indescribable evils
to our people. It is not to the Jew as a rejecter of Christianity that we
object; it is to the Jew as a bitter enemy of Christian emancipation,
the vampire of our rural communes, the tempter of our youth, and
the centre of the demoralizing, corrupting agencies which impair our
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civilization.”
The modern Russian lady’s denunciation of the Jew, in tone as
well as in substance, is a significant, though, of course, quite
unconscious, echo of Ivan the Terrible’s cruder statement of more
163
than three centuries ago. The sole difference consists in form—
the religious objection is minimised and the social emphasised in
accordance with Western modes of expression; but fundamentally
the two utterances are identical.
The Minister of the Interior, in less emotional language,
explained the outbreak as due to causes of a purely economic
character. “During the last twenty years,” he said, “the Jews have not
only gradually got into their hands the trade and industry, but have
also acquired by deed of purchase and leases considerable landed
estates, and, owing to their numbers and solidarity, they have, with
few exceptions, directed all their efforts, not towards increasing the
productiveness of the country, but to the spoliation of the native
population, chiefly the poorer classes, by which means they called
forth a protest from the latter, which unfortunately expressed itself in
164
a violent form.”
Vice-Consul Wagstaff in an official despatch, while giving the
Jews full credit for their remarkable intelligence, thrift, and business
qualities, enumerates the complaints made against them by the
Russians—namely, that “the Jews are the principal keepers of
drinking shops and houses of ill-fame, receivers of stolen goods,
illegal pawnbrokers and usurers. As Government contractors they
frequently collude with unscrupulous officials in defrauding the State
to vast amounts. They use their religion for business purposes,
‘boycott’ outsiders, play into each other’s hands at land sales, and
thus despoil the peasantry. Often the harvest of a peasant who has
been entangled in their toils passes into their grasp, as it stands in
the field, on their own terms. They themselves do not raise
agricultural products, but they reap the benefit of others’ labour, and
steadily become rich while proprietors are gradually getting ruined. In
their relation to Russia they are compared to parasites that have
settled on a plant not vigorous enough to throw them off, and which
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is being gradually sapped of its vitality.”
Another witness describes the gradual subjection of the
impoverished peasant to the Jewish money-lender and adds, “The
Jews’ two great factors in dealing with the Russian peasant are
vodka (native gin) and a few roubles at a pinch, and with these
powers he enslaves and uses him for his own ends. Many large
properties, belonging to influential and hereditary Russian noblemen,
are rented out to Jews, because the proprietors find that they pay
higher rents than the Russian tenants.” He concludes, however, with
the reflection: “The real source of the evil lies in the mental and
moral condition of the masses, and it is there the remedy must be
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applied.”
These are the reasons alleged for the persecution of the Russian
Jews. First as to “productiveness,” the neglect of which is brought
forward as a criminal charge against the Jew. It is an old complaint.
The Andalusian monk of yore inveighed against the Jews of Spain
because “they preferred to gain their livelihood by traffic rather than
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by manual labour or mechanical arts.” Modern economic science
teaches us that a country can dispense as little with the distributors
as with the producers of wealth. Productiveness, however, is well
known to be the pet idea of Russian economists. The last two
Ministers of Finance have for close on a quarter of a century been
fostering production with a reckless energy which by many
unbiassed students is regarded as fatal. Everything is done to
encourage production and exportation, with the result that the soil
gets exhausted, and the reserves of corn, on which the Russian
farmer once relied in time of famine, have disappeared from the
168
country. Like all measures carried to excess and without due
regard to local conditions, the fever of productiveness is not an
unmixed blessing, and the neglect of it will not be laid, by the
impartial outsider, as a crime at the door of the Jew, especially when
he remembers that the Jew is not a free agent in the choice of his
profession. For, even if the law permitted and the Jew wished to
devote himself to agriculture, he would be prevented from doing so
by the Russian system of village communes—an intrusion into which
on the part of non-Christians would be resented by none more
bitterly than by the Russian peasant himself. It is thus seen that the
Jew could not in any case become a “producer,” but was irresistibly
compelled to turn to handicrafts, retail commerce and money-
lending.
As to Jewish extortion. The manumission of the serfs opened up
fields for money-lending which it would have been impossible to
resist the temptation of exploiting even to capitalists whose
opportunities for investment are less circumscribed than are those of
the Russian Jew. That reform, though undoubtedly beneficial in the
long run, was meanwhile bound to upset the social fabric, especially
in Little Russia, and to produce the evils which generally accompany
a radical change brought about in a country unprepared for it. By the
Ukase of 1864 there was created a state of transition. The old was
pronounced out of date; the new was not yet born. While ruining
many noble landlords, the abolition of serfdom brought into being a
vast proletariat of freedmen poor in manual skill and capital, and
poorer still in resource. Both these classes, bewildered by the
unaccustomed conditions rudely thrust upon them, rushed to the Jew
for loans as naturally as the moth rushes to the candle, and, like the
moth, they suffered in the act. The Jew had no cause to treat either
borrower with lenience; but, as might have been expected, the
peasant was by far the greater sufferer of the two. He was less
prepared for the struggle. For centuries he had lived under a
restraint which, while stunting his manhood, conferred upon him
some of the privileges, as well as more than all the punishments, of
childhood. If the leading strings deprived the peasant of the freedom
to act, they also deprived him of the freedom to ruin himself. These
strings were suddenly removed. The peasant, still an infant in mind,
was invested with all the responsibilities of an adult. The very
qualities which had enabled him to bear his servitude now proved his
unfitness for liberty. His utter lack of initiative, of enterprise, of self-
reliance, and of self-restraint, and his abject submissiveness to the
decrees of fate—all characteristic of the serf—are well summarised
in the one word nitchevo, the commonest and most comprehensive
expression in the mujik’s vocabulary. It means “no matter,” and
corresponds exactly to the malesh of the Egyptian fellah—another
peasantry sunk in ignorance and fatalistic resignation, as the results
of centuries of serfdom.
In addition to these defects the Russian peasant is a
constitutional procrastinator. He never does to-day what he thinks he
can by hook or by crook put off till to-morrow. Two of the most
precious boons of his newly-acquired liberty, in his eyes, were the
license it allowed him to postpone his work as long as he liked and to
drink as much as he liked. Under the old system “the proprietor
thrashed his serfs if they were drunk too often, and he kept their
pockets so empty, and the price of the vodki, of which he was the
monopolist, so high, that they had comparatively little opportunity of
gratifying their passion for liquor. This was very well while it lasted,
but now that the control is withdrawn the reaction is all the
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greater.” This is an ample answer to the charge brought against
the Jew as the promoter of intemperance.
As to the charge of collusion with Government officials, it can
easily be met. Both culprits, of course, deserve punishment. But it is
scarcely fair that the one should be only fined, dismissed, or
imprisoned, and the other slaughtered or starved with the rest of his
nation. With regard to “boycotting” outsiders and playing into each
other’s hands, is it not natural that people belonging to a sect which
their neighbours scorn should assist their fellow-sufferers in
preference to their persecutors? There is no stronger bond between
man and man than the bond of a common stigma.
The charges of immoral pursuits and habits of depravity may, or
may not, be exaggerated. But, even admitting that the Jew is all that
his Russian enemy considers him to be, a sufficient answer to the
invectives of the latter is supplied by the old saying: “Every country
has the Jews it deserves.” Without having recourse to the obvious
retort—which in the case of the Russian peasant would be
particularly apposite—that, if there was no demand for the facilities
for immorality supplied by the Jew, the Jew would not think it worth
his while to supply them, we may urge the self-evident truth, that
legal disabilities, by barring the way to an honest and honourable
career, drive their victims to the exercise of the lowest and meanest
of callings. The struggle for existence under such banausic
conditions degenerates into a savage warfare in which there is no
room for scruple or shame. The outcast has no reputation to lose.
And, the more unprincipled the contest becomes, the greater grows
the necessity for oppression, in countries where statesmanship has
not yet discovered less rude remedies. It is a vicious circle from
which there appears to be no escape.
Accordingly, the undisciplined fury of the populace in 1881 was
supplemented by a systematic and carefully reasoned-out
persecution on the part of the Government. Instead of endeavouring
to raise the Russian masses to a level of mental and moral strength
sufficiently high to enable them to compete with the Jew, the Czar’s
ministers devoted their ingenuity to the invention of new means for
lowering the Jew to the level of the Russian masses. The disabilities
of the hated race were increased. Jewish property in the open
country was confiscated, and the owners were driven into ghettos. It
was enacted that henceforth no Jew should be allowed to live in a
village or to acquire property therein. The whole of the Russian
Empire was, with reference to the Jews, divided into three distinct
sections. The bulk of the race were confined to the fifteen provinces
known as the “Pale of Jewish Settlement.” Those Jews who
belonged to a merchants’ guild of the first class for ten years,
University graduates, and skilled artisans were permitted to move
freely and to settle in any part of European Russia they chose,
except the departments of Moscow and Taurien, in which no Jewish
workman was allowed to reside. The third section comprised Siberia,
and that was closed to all Jews, except convicts. The result of these
enactments was that the few towns within the “pale” were
overcrowded with Jewish residents, herded together and forced to
carry on a fierce competition for existence with each other. At the
same time, laws were passed rendering the admittance of Jewish
youths to the high schools and Universities prohibitive, and the Jews
were forbidden to act as State or municipal officers, or teachers, or
to practise at the bar without a special license from the Minister of
Justice. These and many other measures of restriction were adopted
with the ostensible object of saving the Russian peasant from the
clutches of the Jewish harpy. The joint effect of persecution and
legislation on the Jews was misery. But these crimes proved the
reverse of beneficial to the very peasants on whose behalf they were
avowedly committed. In every village and township the departure of
the Jewish traders and artisans was immediately marked by a rise in
the prices of commodities, and was soon followed by commercial
and industrial stagnation.
That regard for the moral and material welfare of the people,
however, was not the sole, or the principal, motive of the Russian
Government’s policy is unwittingly confessed by the fair patriot
already quoted. Referring to the prohibition of the Jews from keeping
public houses, she says: “That our objection is solely to the anti-
national Jews, not the Jews who become Russians in all but their
origin, is proved by the decision of the Commission in favour of
allowing the Karaite Jews to sell drink as freely as any other of their
Russian fellow-subjects. It is only the Talmudist Jews who are
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forbidden that privilege.” It is hard for the ordinary man to see
how belief in the Bible justifies a pursuit which is otherwise
condemned as injurious to body and soul, or in what mysterious way
the Talmud affects the quality of liquor. The ordinary man will find it
easier to draw from these facts the inference that the Government’s
real end was the suppression of the Jew, the suppression of the
drink-selling Jew being only a means to that end.
In the attitude of the Russian people towards the Jews at the
present moment we recognise all the features made familiar by the
history of the Jewish nation in the past. Social nonconformity and
aloofness led to anti-Judaism in antiquity. To this motive of
persecution the advent of Christianity added religious rancour, and
the Middle Ages economic rivalry. The nineteenth century was
destined to strengthen the texture of hatred by the addition of a new
strand—Nationalism. All these causes, as we have seen, combined
to make the Jew an object of detestation variously disguised. In
ancient Rome we found impatience of dissent justifying itself by the
pretext of regard for public morality; in Catholic and Protestant
Europe cruelty and cupidity hallowed by the cloak of religious zeal; in
modern Europe we see narrow-minded intolerance and jealousy
trying to ennoble themselves by the title of patriotism. Each age has
inherited the passions of the past and has increased the sad
inheritance by the addition of new prejudices. In Russia modern
culture spreads a little way over the face of mediaevalism, as the
waters of a river at its mouth spread over the surface of the ocean,
modifying its colour without affecting its depths. Consequently the
Jew is still persecuted for his heresy, as well as for his usury,
exclusiveness, and foreign extraction.
Russian officials and English apologists of Russian anti-
Semitism will not admit that the persecution of the Russian Jews is
religious, though acknowledging that religion, too, plays its part.
They claim that it is essentially economical and social, “and that the
main cause has always been the unhappy relation of a wandering
and parasitic race, retaining its tribal exclusiveness, to the races
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among which it sojourns, and on the produce of which it feeds.”
This view is natural in a modern spectator of the West; but it is not
quite correct, as it implies modern and Western conditions and
sentiments in a country which only in a small measure is modern and
Western. The late Mr. Lecky wrote: “The Russian persecution stands
in some degree apart from other forms of the anti-Semitic movement
on account of its unparalleled magnitude and ferocity.” It also stands
apart, to the same degree, on account of its origin. Jew-hatred in
Russia is a thoroughly genuine survival. In Western Europe it is
largely an artificial revival. The Russian Jews have never been
emancipated from servitude, because the Russian Christians, with
few exceptions, have never been emancipated from ignorance and
bigotry. In other words, the modern term anti-Semitism, with all its
quasi-scientific connotation, can hardly be applied to the Russian
variety of the epidemic. But, be the causes what they may, the result
is the same. To the slaughtered Jew, it is a matter of comparative
indifference whether he is slain as a parasite or for the love of Christ.
The student also must be very extraordinarily constituted who can
derive any consolation from the fact that the principles of toleration
made dear to us by the experience and the sacrifices of two
thousand years, are violated in so outrageous a manner not from
religious, but from “economical and social” motives.
But, though the source of Russian antipathy to the Jew may be a
matter of dispute, there is no question as to the sincerity and the
depth of the feeling. An authority on the Jewish Question, writing in
1882, expressed the opinion that the disasters of that and the
previous year were inevitable, and that, “unless the Jews are
removed from the countries in which they have taken place, we may
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certainly anticipate their recurrence upon a much larger scale.”
This anticipation was justified by subsequent events. In 1891 and
1892 new anti-Jewish riots, encouraged by the authorities, were
followed by fresh restrictive enactments.
Many Jews who had contrived to settle in towns outside the
“pale” were driven back into it, and others within the “pale” were
forced to quit the villages and townships in which they had dwelt for
years and, leaving their property and business connections, to take
up their abode in the over-crowded larger towns. The persecution
reached its climax in the winter of 1891–92, when thousands of men,
women and little children were heartlessly expelled from Moscow, at
a time of the year when even soldiers are not suffered to drill in the
open air on account of the cold. These and other measures of
unbearable harshness drove, as it was intended that they should,
about a quarter of a million of Jews out of the Empire; and then the
nations of the West, alarmed by the influx of the destitute refugees,
raised a bitter outcry against the barbarity of the Czar.
The Czar, however, in the words of one of his own servants and
apologists, “remained deaf to protests of the Lord Mayor of London,
for example,” and declared that “he will leave unheeded any and all
such foreign remonstrances demanding a change in methods which
have been deliberately adopted.” In fact, all the measures of
repression and restriction which ignorant foreigners misrepresented
as “the barbarous expulsion of the Jews from Russia” had for their
virtuous object to prevent collision between the Jews and the
peasants, to relieve the latter from what they could not be persuaded
was not a Jewish tyranny, and, in one word, to secure good order
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and to maintain stability in the community. It is interesting to hear
the Russian version of the matter. Unfortunately a euphemism does
not constitute a refutation.
In 1896 the Jewish Question was re-opened, and the Jews, as
well as other sufferers, ventured to hope for an improvement of their
lot from Nicholas II.’s reputed zeal for reform. Much also was
expected from “the generous and sympathetic instincts of the young
Empress.” But these expectations were not realised, and at the
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present hour the country in which the race is most numerous is
also the country in which it suffers most grievously. The treatment of
the Jews in Russia can be summed up in one sentence: deliberate
starvation of body and soul. The Jew, as has been seen, is loathed
not only as a non-Slav and non-Orthodox, but also as a parasite who
exhausts the organism on which he lives. Isolation, it is held, by
forcing him to feed upon himself, will kill him. The Jews are,
therefore, only allowed to reside in certain specified quarters of
certain towns in certain districts, and are forbidden to move from
place to place without special permission or such a special form of
passport as is granted to prostitutes. Overcrowding produces
poverty, disease, and all the filthy degradation of ghetto life. A faint
conception of what such life means may be formed from a recent
petition to the Russian Committee of Ministers signed by many
thousands of Russian Jews: “Not less than 20 per cent. of the entire
population of the Jewish Pale of Settlement,” say the petitioners, “are
reduced to such a condition of wretchedness that they have to be
supported from charitable sources. In great Jewish communities like
those of Vilna, Berditcheff, and Odessa, the number of the Jewish
poor amounts to as much as 25 to 33 per cent. Co-extensive with
this widespread poverty there is in all the Jewish communities an
enormous labouring and artisan proletariat that knows not to-day
wherewith it may exist on the morrow. The simple weapon which the
labourer and artisan possesses in his relations with his employer—
the power of leaving his work and seeking better conditions of
employment elsewhere—has become impossible of use on account
of the limitation of freedom of movement and the prohibition of
residence elsewhere than in the few towns of the Pale of Settlement.
If they do not wish to die of hunger or go begging Jewish workmen
must submit unreservedly to the conditions prescribed by the
manufacturers. The Jewish capitalists, too, are seriously injured by
the burdensome effect of the special regulations which have, owing
to the restraints of the May laws, taken from them every freedom of
action, and deprived them of the power of disposing of their products
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in markets outside the Pale of Settlement....”
In addition, the Jews are confined to the most ignoble
occupations. They are excluded from the High Schools and the
Universities of the Christians, and are forbidden to keep secular
schools of their own. The only teaching accessible to the ordinary
Russian Jew is Rabbinical teaching. The centre of this education is
the Talmudical School of Walosin, known among the Jews as the
“Tree of Life College,” founded in 1803 by a disciple of Elijah Wilna,
a famous Hebrew scholar, and maintained by contributions collected
from all parts of the Russian “pale.” The institution provides spiritual
and bodily food—both very primitive in quality and meagre in
quantity—to some four hundred hungry students who spend three-
fourths of their time poring over the records of the past, and the other
fourth is denouncing a present of which they know nothing.
Ignorance fosters fanaticism, and the authority of the Synagogue
which, under different circumstances, might have been used as an
instrument of conciliation, is turned into a source of bitterness. The
seed of discord between Jew and Gentile, sown by oppression, is
nursed by the benighted Rabbis, who regard thirst for secular
knowledge as more sinful than thirst for alcohol; and the poisonous
plant is assisted in its growth by the young Jews who, having
contrived to obtain abroad an education denied to them at home,
intensify the just animosity of their people against the Christian
oppressors. The ill-feeling is invigorated further still by the Jewish
recruits who, on the expiration of their term of service, return to their
families exasperated by the hardships and the insults which they
have experienced in the ranks, for the Hebrew soldier in the Russian
army is treated exactly as the Christian recruit is treated in the
Turkish Gendarmerie. In both cases, not only is promotion out of the
176
question, but the infidels are the victims of unmeasured invective,
malice, and injury at the hands of their colleagues and superiors.
They are, as a race, considered unclean and unfriendly. They form a
small minority. They are powerless to protect themselves, and the
officers will not take them under their protection. The less deserved
the insult, the more anxious will the victim be to recover his self-
esteem by revenge. Is it, then, to be wondered at that the Russian
Jews are distinguished among their fellow-slaves for their eager
participation in any insurrectionary movement that offers the faintest
hope of relief and revenge? To turn a population which, by instinct
and interest alike, is the most conservative and peaceful in the world
into a people of anarchists is, indeed, the highest triumph hitherto
achieved by Russian statesmanship.
The hatred towards the Jew is shared by the Russian’s enemy,
the Pole, and for similar reasons—economic preponderance and
excessive addiction to usury and the trade in liquor. In 1863 the
revolutionary Government of Poland endeavoured to enlist the
sympathies of the Jews in the struggle against the common
oppressor by conceding to them civic equality. The experiment was
crowned with brilliant success. Justice turned the Jews of Poland
into Polish patriots. But the reconciliation did not outlive the
revolution. After that short spell of liberty the ancient prejudice
revived, and now, though legally the Jews of Poland are still Polish
citizens, the Catholics of Poland, encouraged by their Orthodox
tyrants of Russia, vie with them in their fierce contempt for the race
which stood their common fatherland in so good stead in the hour of
its need. How intense this feeling is, may be seen from the following
account by an English eye-witness:
“To the Jew in Warsaw is meted out a wealth of disfavour and
contempt that is hardly pleasant to witness. The British stranger,
however, who normally lives far from any personal contact with these
huge Jewish populations, is not altogether in a position to pass
judgment on this deeply-seated anti-Semitic rancour. It pervades all
classes of Polish society, and finds expression in a variety of ways.
The youth who obligingly performs my minor marketing for me, in
return for a tolerant attitude on my part on the subject of small
change, was interested in the fate of an egg which I had pronounced
to have passed the age limit of culinary usefulness.
“‘Don’t throw it away,’ he begged; ‘give it to me.’
“‘What do you want it for?’
177
“‘Oh, it will do to throw at a Jew.’”
One exception to the mutual antipathy which divides the Jew of
Poland from his Gentile fellow-countryman is offered by the upper

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