The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-15 00:00:00

THE POLISH INSURRECTION.

POSEN, Oct. 9.

The Warsaw correspondent of the Posener
Journal gives the following pictures of the present
condition of the Polish provinces :
If a shot is fired from your house, the dwelling
will be pillaged and confiscated, and you yourself
brought before a court-martial. The same fate is
in store for you if any person's life is attempted in
front of your abode or in your courtyard. If arms
or anything of a suspicious character are discovered
in the rooms of one of your tenants, you will have
to answer it before the court-martial. If a suspected
perso❑ is arrested in your house, you will be brought
before a court-martial. If any one commits a crime
in the streets, and takes refuge in your house, you
will be brought before a court-martial. if the wind
puffs out the light in the entrance hall of your house,
you will ba punished with the full severity of
martial law. Unfortunate proprietors of Warsaw
houses, on all sides the gibbet is your only prospect !
If an attempt upon the life of any one takes place
within a house, all the inhabitants, without distinc•
tion of age or sex, are considered accomplices, and,
as such, brought before a court•martial. If before
or within a house or in the adjoining courtyard a
political murder takes place, all the inhabitants are
responsible to a court-martial. Passers by, stopped
in the street at the time of the event in case of the
actual culprit's flight, are subjected to the punish-
ment which would have been inflicted upon the
author of the attempt, had he been taken. Un-
fortunate tenants! unfortunate passers by ! who
among you is sure of the morrow ? Workpeople
in whose possession is found too large a quantity of
objects capable of being used for equipping or pro-
visioning insurgents are brought before a court-
martial, and everything they have is confiscated.
Unfortunate workpeople, for you also the gibbet is
prepared !

Landed proprietors upon whose estates insur-
gents may be, or across whose lands they have
passed, equally with those who furnish provisions
to the revolutionists, are brought before a court-
martial, their mansions plundered, then set on fire.
Unfortunate landed proprietors, you live in mortal
fear !

Officials who do not wear round hats, those who
do not shave off their moustaches, and those who
allow their wives and daughters to wear black gar-
ments, are considered favourable to the National
Government. Therefore, they receive their dismis-
sal; therefore, they are subsequently brought before
a court-martial. Unfortunate officials, the sword
of Damocles is also suspended over your heads !
In fine, we are all guilty, all condemned to death,
and a drunken and licentious soldiery familiarises
us with this death daily, hunting us through the
streets with sabre cuts and bayonet stabs, not to
mention the insults inflicted upon us by the Cos-
sacks with delight. Our situation grows more dan-
gerous from day to day. Yet all the brutal vio-
lence, all the refined cruelty, all the savage license
and unexampled barbarities of Russia do not weaken
the spirit of Poland. They nerve her, on the con-
trary, to combat the oppressor with energy and
courage that defy defeat.