Around 1887–1888, Peretz's law license was revoked by the Imperial Russian authorities, who suspected him of promoting socialist and Polish nationalist ideas. With that he lost his income and his home, since he was unable to find other employment in the city. He found temporary work in 1890 as a member of an expedition, sponsored by philanthropist Jan Bloch, to conduct a statistical survey of Polish Jews; his experiences visiting small towns and villages of the Tomaszów province in southeastern Poland became the basis of his fictional sketches "Bilder fun a Provints-Rayze" (Pictures from a Provincial Journey). After that, Peretz settled permanently in Warsaw, where, beginning in 1891, he worked as a record-keeper in the small bureaucracy of the city's Jewish community.