The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-03 00:00:00

1M11...." ••••••••........
THE I !OLISH INSURRECTION,

(From t; he Special Correspondent of the Times.)
WARSAW, Nov. 19.
The teleg ;raph continues to be in such a hurry
that it does not give itself time to verify the news
that rea( :11 es it. Accordingly, we are perpetually
being in farmed in Warsaw, via Paris and London,
of thing s having taken place in Warsaw of which in
Warsav v itself we had not heard, though we hear of
terribli 3 things enough in the shape of sudden and
arhitrf sry arrests on mere suspicion every night, and
execu' dons every three or four days.
Thi2r e have been on the average two lives per week
taken. on the part of the Government sinc3 I have
be en.in Warsaw, and hundreds of political prisoners
ha:v.) been sent into exile every Sunday morning.
It 'is not true that 50 of the female prisoners from
th a citadel have been sent into exile, but quite true
tt tat two have been exiled. It is said that of the
S uspected political priioners sent out of the country,
none are to go further east than the Moscow pro-
vince; though in the first instance, and when they
left Warsaw, many of them, and all those who had
incurred the displeasure of the Government before'
were under sentence for Siberia.

The early Warsaw news received in several Ger.
man cities, and forwarded thence further west, is
said to be obtained from imaginative Jewish tra-
vellers, who, on their arrival on the other side of
the frontier, love to relate the rumours of the Polish
capital, slightly Orientalised. Some of these ru-
mours, as reproduced abroad, must surprise
strangers to Warsaw, but they astound residents.
What really occurs here is bad enough, and too
bad,
but nevertheless it is exaggerated in most of the
foreign newspapers, and especially in those which
derive their information from Polish sources.
It is the curse (or rather one of the curses)
of this country that no one cares what hap-
pens to it unless it be some highly dramatic and
particularly sanguinary calamity. The suppression
of high. 'schools and universities throughout Poland
for 30 years was of course an incomparably greater
evil and an incomparably greater crime on the part
of the Russian Government than the dispersion of
a crowd by armed force, and with considerable loss
of life, on the lawless principle pursued by military
Governments in all parts of the continent of Europe_
But there is nothing at all dramatic in a plan for
depriving a whole people of national education. It
does not appeal to the eye, and it cannot be made
the subject of a picture in an illustrated newspaper.
The Poles have often of late felt themselves com-
pelled to get their misfortunes presented in a dra-
matic form, for they have thought it necessary,
above all, to consider what would strike this used
up Europe, u E „
urope, they have, said to them-
selves, "does Lot mind a people being gradually
extinguished if it will only die out quietly, but the
massacre of Sinope roused the indignation of France
and England, and the massacres in Syria led to
armed interference. If we resist the Russians, as
at any time during the last 30 years we have had a
right to do, we too shall be massacred, and then
Europe"—that is to say, France and England,
"which constitute Europe in a moral sense in the eyes
of the Poles—" will perhaps inquire what ails us."
" What will Europe say to this ?" is a question
the Poles put to themselves at each fresh cruelty in-
flicted upon them. Hitherto Europe, for all prac-
tical purposes, has said to their sufferings what the
world said to the paradoxes presented to it by the
Vicar's son, " The world said nothing to my para-
d.oxes," and Europe has said nothing to the suf-
ferings of the Poles ; or rather it has spoken
n great deal, but without uttering any of those
'words that signify future action. Still, Europe is
appealed to, and it has now been appealed to so
often that it seems to be thought impossible to touch
it except by tales of the most horrible and heart-
Tending character. There is, unhappily, no need to
invent such narratives; but, at the same time, too
mach stress is laid on the severities committed in
the Polish towns, and they are often exaggerated,
while the terrible position of the inhabitants of the
country is left almost unnoticed. 'Whatever be the
disadvantages of Warsaw as a place of residence, I
find that Poles are very sorry to leave it to go into
the country, that they are very glad to get back
again here, and that their friends are very anxious
about them while they are away. A proprietor who
bas just returned from 'his estate uninjured and
free says that as Paris and London are to Warsaw,
so is Warsaw to the country districts in Poland.
The double terrorism which renders life so intoler-
able in the country, is scarcely felt in Warsaw, for
here the Russian Government has reasserted its
power, and the National Government has ceased to
be obeyed in all cases where its orders are in direct
and open contradiction with those issued by the
Russians. This, it may be said, signifies the failure
of the Polish insurrection. Bat it will nut fail if it
be assisted from abroad, and without foreign assist-
ance it was evident that it would fail from the very
beginning. In the meanwhile, and considering that
the insurrection has done its work and that the
question of intervention or non -interaention
scarcely depends any longer upon the Poles them-
selves, I fancy that a considerable number of the
inhabitants of Warsaw are by no means sorry to
find that they are now subjected to only one
tyranny, instead of two.
For some time it must have been a most trying
this
kg for the porters to be told by the Russians
that
doces sae s they would be beaten if they did not keep the
th and by the National Government that
would ba stabbed if they did not keep them
Open ; for ho
I.'Be proprietors to be threatened, on the
other heed
'they tee with fiscal execution and forced sale it
the othe,r,
Witalin not paying their taxes ; and, on
execution by the knife if they paid
them. The xml
instantly to j,i,(l4enal Government, however, has had
without wishing whenever it has put itself, or
it
v,eehas been brought, into direct
conflif.tt with theGo
raent of Russia. It may still
receive its own taxeßt:a
it can prevent no one who
possesses the means from
paying both ordinary and
syecial taxes to the Russitt
If the insurrection
were to last long enough,thnies' doable draining of the
national purse would ultimately put an end to tax-.
paying altogether, for the excellent reason that there
would be no money left, at least
not s among those
who have hitherto been known
a
classes," and who are now being speedily reduced "the richer
of
bankruptcy. I have already mentioned that out to
the 3,000 house proprietors ordered
"'Pay a special
income tax of 8 per cent., all but a few
appointed dread;
obeyed the order on or before the a
Defaulters are now sentenced to pay 12 Per
can:,
before the 20th of this month, after which, in ca:.,
of further default, 16 per cent. will be claimed.
By payment of the 8 per cent. tax nearly 3,000
house proprietors have rendered themselves liable to
capital punishment at the hands of the National Go.
verntnent, but it is hoped they will not be executed.
By the way, are any members of the National Go-
vernment themselves house proprietors, and, if so,
have they disobeyed their own commands ? And
how does it happen that the National Government
knew so little of the views aLd intentions of the
house proprietors as a class as to imegine they would
observe an injunction which, if it was not likely to
be attended to, ought never to have been issued ?
I read in the foreign newspapers that the order
" of the National Government" to take off mourn-
ing has been obeyed by the ladies of Warsaw—which
is true ; and that ladies have been insulted by the
soldiers and police in consequence of something in
their costume not being approved—which, as far as
INettionainleaat rn, is entirely untrue, As often as the
Government contents itself with endorsing
the orders ,
f the Russian Government it is sure to be
obeyed. 1 )00 o
fficial Journal says that the adoption
of coloured
Clothes the ladies of 'Warsaw, after
nothing but retees by
nearly three yeartsni hasng had been worn by them for
given the streets a gay and
animated appe„anee.
Ido not see it myself. A
grotesque and sad appearance
pre-
sentee. ic It Was time
to is what is really
ppountdan end to this mas-
querade " says the eorres
ant
of a Russian
e
journal;l),bu,,, , t the factiis, she,
true masquerade ue
fa
dressedpersonswho as
are grieving
though they had no such loss to deplore
fune-
ral looking (if it were not for the Com. n) like
shabby wedding precession, and women crying their
eyes out at a secretly ordered service for the dead, at-
tired in all the coiour of the rainbow. To the men
it does not matter much ; but the women who hoe