The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-02 00:00:00

droperty and to have taken a full share of the spoil.
If so, whatever the social acquirements of some of
these gentlemen may be, it may be said that despot-
ism in Russia, however much it may "soften the
manners," developer at the same time a considera-
ble amount of actual ferocity. In any case the
assault and the pillage were eprcssly ordered and
directed, and, accordingly, it is not the soldiers
alone who ought to be held responsible for the
atrocities that were committed. After the shells
had been thrown and the pistol-shot fired,a
quarter of an hour elapsed before General Berg
sent back Gen. Bebutoff with soldiers despatched
eid
for the express purpose of robbing o
murderoustwo 000utrage
such undoubtedly it was) had been committed,
(
the vicinity of which the
thescene of the outrage,
nor the place from which but neither of which was
it tar either conceived,
planned, or put into
thrown or fired from the
house belonging to, but
xecion. Nothing was
not occupied by, the
zamoy ski family, and the
is the very last place from w ch it could be Rus-
sianssup-
know perfectly well that the Zamoyski palace
attempt at assassination would be
it
is not pretended that it was made
made.f
roos n
i ed thhideoa
latter
Indeed,
d
building, only it is said now that the
two buildings form but one, and as this happens to
be a simple untruth, an edict has been published
ostensibly with a view to future occurrences, but in
reality to give a semblance of legality to the flag-
rant wrong that has already been perpetrated. First
the Official Journal calls houses which stand apart,
and have no sort of connexion with one another,
except through the proprietor, " the united houses ;"
and then the director of the police, perceiving that
the falsehood of the Official journal must soon be
exposed, issues an order which makes proprietors of
houses equally responsible with actual occupiers for
whatever breaches of an improvised law may be
committed within them. It would look strange in
Europe (and will have a curious appearance as it is)
that Count Zsmoyski, living in Paris, should be held
responsible and deprived of the greater part of his
fortune, in consequence of an offence having been
committed in the neighbourhood of houses belong-
ing to him in Warsaw; so to put as good a face as
possible on the matter it is suddenly arranged that
the punishment already inflicted upon him shall be
made right and proper by a " posterior" order,
framed as far as possible to suit the particular cir-
cumstances of his case. The police order in ques-
tion is as follows :
"To the Chief Police Master of Warsaw,—The recent
outrages and assassinations have shown that the proprietors
of houses, inmates, and inhabitants in general of this town
not only do not assist the Government in seizing the crimi-
nals, but even facilitate their flight or screen them from the
search of the police. I, therefore make known for the in-
formation of the public, by explicit order of the superior
authority :
" 1. That in case of an attempt being made on the life of
any person in the street, and the perpetrator not being
caught, those who may have witnessed the attempt without
rendering all possible help towards catching the criminal
will be punished with all the rigour of martial law.
"2. If the criminal, after having committed the act of
assassination, or after only attempting it, takes refuge in a
house and is not seized there by the proprietor or the inmates,
the house will be immediately sequestrated, without indem-
nity, for the use of the army, and the inmates ejected.
"3. In case of assassination, or attempt at assassination,
committed in a house or courtyard, if the perpetrator of the
act be not seized and delivered up by the proprietor or the
inmates, then the proprietor as well as the inhabitants will
be subjected to the utmost rigour of martial law, and the
house, with everything in it, be delivered up to the military.
" 4. The same liability will be incurred by the proprietors
and inmates of every house, if an act of assassination, or at-
tempt at assassination be committed in or from it, either by
shooting or otherwise.

" Major-General LEWSZYN.
" Warsaw, September 10 (22), 1863."

I now give the official account of the outrage
actually committed as inserted in the journals of
Warsaw :

"The day before yesterday, at 6 o'clock, when his Excel-
lency, Commander-in-Chief, Aide-de-Camp General, Count
Berg, performing the functions of Lieutenant, deigned to
pass along the street of the Cracow suburb, attended only by
one officer and eight Cossacks of the Kuban, as he was in
front of the united houses of Count Zamoyski a shot was
fired, while at the same time several Orsini shells and a case
filled with explosive substances were thrown. The paletot
of his Excellency was pierced, and one Cossack, two carriage
horses, and seven Cossack horses wounded. The united
houses were immediately surrounded, the lodgers taken out,
the male lodgers arrested, the furniture thrown out and
burnt. As it was found that some of the lodgers had their
things packed up it was supposed that they must have
known beforehand of the attempt on General Berg's life.
The said houses were immediately given up for ever to the
administration of the army.

The " supposition" that because a few persons in
a house containing 1,500 inmates had their things
packed up those persons must therefore have known
that an attempt was going to be made on General
Berg's life is certainly creditable to Russian inge-
nuity. As to errors in statement, I have already
explained that what the Official Journal calls the
" united houses" are not united at all, but are quite
apart. Each, moreover, presents an extensive front,
so that if a shell had been thrown from one it would
be difficult to " suppose" that it had been thrown
from the other. " His Excellency's paletot," more-
over (which the official journalist seems to have re-
garded as something much more important than the
wounded Cossack or even the wounded carriage
horses), was pierced horizontally and in such a man-
ner that the shot which passed through it must have
been fired, not from any of the apartments in the
house, but on an exact level and from the pavement.
It is said, in fact, that the attack was made from the
pavement in front of an empty building facing the
Zamoyski palace; but the empty building being
already Government property could not be confis-
cated, and being without furniture could not be
sacked. The sacking of the Zamoyski house lasted
from 6 p.m. until 10. Then, all that had not been
carried away or thrown out of window and burnt
was left for the rightful owners. Probably not
much jewellery remained. The Chopin piano had
already been destroyed, and Professor Kowalewski
is now advertising for his Oriente 1 manuscripts in
case they should have escaped the flames. The fate
of books, manuscripts, pictures, and literary and
artistic treasures of all kinds in Poland has not
changed much for the last century. The library
founded by the Zaluskis was plundered by the
agents of that superior woman —the admiration of
the writers of the period—Catherine the Great; and
its contents form now the chief part of the imperial
library of St. Petersburg. There was renewed book
stealing in 1830 under Nicholas, who was not over
fond of literature. Now mere robbery of books has
come to an end in Russian Poland, and literary
arson has taken its place.
The most learned historian of modern Poland was
consulted the other day as to the materials existing
in the country for a life of Sobieski. Szainocha
(who from excessive study has lost lals sight) could
only dictate in reply that abundant materials for
such a work had existed in the ancient libraries of
Warsaw and Cracow, but that, those libraries having
been plundered at various periods, the places richest
in documents relating to the great Polish hero were
not St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Berlin. This let-
ter, addressed to a distinguished French Professor,
was written without bitterness, and set forth the
simple truth. What will Kowalewski say now if he
is consulted as to the result of his five and thirty
years' studies in Kazan, in the tco familiar Siberia,
on the confines of China, and in Pekin itself? The
Russian Government exiles a boy of genius from
Wilna to the far east of its empire. The boy, find-
ing that his fate is in strange lands, studies those
lands and their languages. The Ressian Govern-
ment, with a passing gleam of intelligence, pardons
him, turns his talent to account, and finally offers
him a professorship iu the capital of his native coun-
try, and endeavours, when it is too late, to make
it understood that if for thirty years it has pro-
scribed all public instruction of a superior kind
in Poland, it has become alive to its error at last,
and at last wishes really to promote the diffusion of
knowledge among those whom it had until that
time sought to reduce to a state of ignorance and
aßcareely have thought he had reached the west when
laPp'arrived in
:N 1e
Warsaw.wsk i ,from the east, could
coming
as
"Is this some part of
; Po" Sierakowski, wounded and captive, ex-
when when tlgieh.ne sergeant of the detachment that
conductinto headquarters
k should
kill
the
i tao asked his
officer if, in ease
a au
of
the prisoners. Asia
responsible by the
Poles for a great deal ofs made
barbarism riwhich is, unfor-
tunately, almost as much European as it is Asiatic ;
but Kowalewski, as 411 " orientalist," must re4lly