The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-28 00:00:00

TR: 3 POLISH INSURRECTION.

(From, the S.
.pecial Correspondent of the Times.)
WARSAW, Oct. 20.

The great, incident here of the last few days has
been the destruction of the Townhall by a fire,
which th, ..,se who saw it, as I did, from close by,
must kno w to have been the work of incendiaries.
I cannot say who lighted the fire nor why it was
lighted,, but the Russians made the greatest exer-
tions t,o put it out as quickly as possible, saved the
erchi ves, saved the furniture, and prevented the
flames from reaching a part of the building in which
a number of political prieoners were confined.
Twice during the last week the word has been
passed from mouth to mouth in Warsaw that " some-
thing" would take place in the evening, and that
it wou Id not be safe to be in the streets after seven
—the anti-curfew hour. But everything passed
off quietly, except that a few nights since a man
named Dombrowski was attacked by "national
gendarmes" and left for dead (though he is still
alive) in the street called " Long." On Sunday
naarning, however, at twelve o'clock, the tramping
infantry, the galloping backwards and forwards
of Cossacks, and the rushing to and fro of crowds
of excited men and women gave the thoroughfares
in which all this movement took place the sound
and aspect (so familiar to Continental travellers of
the last fifteen years) of a coming disturbance.
Insurrection in Warsaw at the present moment
could only mean the exposure of a portion of the
inhabir,ants to massacre, and perhaps of the whole
city to bombardment from the citadel. Neverthe-
less, a rising, in the desperate position in which the
inhabitants of Warsaw and the Poles generally now
find themselves, is just possible ; a rising has
certainly been meditated, and though, owing
to the precautions of all kinds taken by the
R assians, it becomes more difficult every day to
carry out the plan, whatever it may have been,
there was some reason on Sunday for supposing
that it was on the point of being put into execution.
Many persons here imagine that a cruel measure of
r epression, such as in the present temper of the
Russian soldiers would undoubtedly be the result
of any attack, or of any organized resistance on the
part of the Poles, might lead to an expression of
indignation in Franco or England so decided as to
leave the Governments of these countries no option
but. to declare war against Russia. This appears to
me the saddest of all political speculations, for, even
if deliberately provoked, the Russians could scarcely
do worse in Warsaw than they have already done,
and are now doing daily, in the provinces. The
western Pavers have shown that they can tolerate
—not with complacency, nor without the strongest
condemnation—but that they can tolerate, never-
theless, sue la acts of barbarism in Poland as might
have callealfor their interference even if no distinct
right on. their part to interfere had ever existed.
To be stare, oneoutrage in Warsaw does really cause
a great 21' outcry abroad than a hundred similar ones
canamatted in the country ; but, at the same time,
it is aaer feetly well-known that states are devastated
PeasP.nts raised against proprietors, and proprietors
imPr isoned, maltreated, and their property confis-
cate d, even when they are thought to have only
aithai the insurrection, in which persons of all classes
are well known to have taken an active part. If
the indignation produced by the knowledge of such
facts a a these is not efficacious, what advantage is to
be expe-.:ted from a catastrophe in Warsaw, about
which the only thing certain is that it would show
us a d ,efenceless city in the position of a city taken
by s .orm ?

one riot in the confidence of the National Go-
verririent can say with what object the Town-hall
of 3.rsaw was set on fire. In the meanwhile it is
certain that it did not take fire by accident. The
riffir dal account of the affair simply sets forth that
fig nos were first seen issuing from a room on the
second floor in which certain archives were stowed
as ray, and that some time afterwards they burst
forth trora another part of the building in which
the polick records were kept. lam also told by an
evewitn ess that utter the fire had been partly sub-
dued it broke out again in quite a fresh place. The
genere,l rumour in the town was that the fire had
begun in the roof and is several places at the same
time, and when I saw the building, the conflagra-
tion having then lasted about six hours, the whole
roe.' was in a blaze, though in many of the rooms
itv mediately beneath it. there seemed to be no fire
c-scept what proceeded from the embers that had
fallen from above. All the upper stories, ho wever,
of the right and left wings, as seen from the front,
were in flames, and the left wing was also burning
at the back.

Let no one hasten to say that the Poles did not
set their own Town-hall on fire, for the National
Government may be preparing, at this moment,
some patriotic and sophistical justification of the
act. I beard !numbers of respectable Poles deny
with indignation the accusation brought against the
National Government of having planned and di-
rected the attack against Gen. Berg, until at last
the National Government coolly assumed the re-
sponsibility of the crime.
Do not, above all, let it be said that the Russians
set the Town-hall on fire in order to have an excuse
for increasing their measures of severity against the
inhabitants of Warsaw. A similar unfounded
and ridiculous explanation of the attack on Gen.
ghe was circulated for a few days—which, by
Way, the Journal de St. Petersbourg, with its
usual effrontery, has attributed to the gimmes.
Ittruatrytha mefaieht is the Russians rule Poland in so arbi-
trary a manner that they want no excuses for any
of their
misdeeds. They have not, however, as yet
taken to burning
down Polish cities—as at least
one portion of -w7
on Sunday bad thereengines been a little more wind and no
Government
The burning
or ht at hand.
the result, of aceidenet. Warsaw Town-hall was not
In
considering what may
have been the motive of thiB deliberate act of ineen-
diarisan, I can only think
that it may have been
rariant as a protect against the imposition
imposition of the new
tax—if riot with the more direct motive of burning
the lists of taxpayers. It was at the
Town-hall that
the 8 per cent. income-tax was to hepaid, and I men-
tioned in a previous letter that f
thee omnrsoon:thhthlo2 had seper y
alreadcent.
who do
not pay before the end of
this
will be required. Some 20 p
settled with the Government on score were
publicly warned last week in a a
proclamation"
issued by the "Chief of the Town." Their
name on
published, and they themselves summoned to swere
appear
befc,re one of the "revolutionary tribunals," It a,
on this question of the 8 per cent. income-tax for.
"car purposes that the great contest is now taking
'place between the National Government and the
Government of Russia, and it will be curious to see
whether the inhabitants of Warsaw will positively
disobey the former or obey it, and by doing so ren-
der themselves liable to an extra payment of 50 per
cent. in favour of the latter. The only thing certain
about the matter is that, at least, no further pay-
ments will be made until the very last day, and that
for the next few days—as the Town-hall is destroyed
—no payments will be made at all.
It was evident that the fire of yesterday caused
the Russians considerable alarm, and if they really
desired a rising in Warsaw they need only have
',ept the troops in barracks for anhour and they
would have had it. The fire might
have been a
81gnal,hat was apparently nothing of the kind or
•
it might hay_,
a number be en lighted with the view of draw-
ing
the town
ao a of troops to one particular quarter of
to leave the other quarters compara-
tively uneecal,
gular tight ai dt all, ' or, without any notion of a re-
and simply in the hope that it
would lead to
ciumi"' disturbance, cud such
bloodshed as would
the West. In
any case be cure to be talked about in
the Russians did right in
taking every possible
were brought out intollt7cantinn• All the soldiers
the public gardens ; anti
all'ltrt=cts, the squares, and
til the next morning, the thday, all night, and un-
ughfares leading to
the large open space a,
Hall stands (its wells are, dtet of which the Town
closed to the public. and the a7pdrnilg "till), were
by intlntry Cossacks. ebea guarded
It did not seetn to be necassary, haw_
the Cossacks abould use their whipi
114"0..17, that
crowd, and even single out quiet and per
fte theti
inoffensive persons for their assaults, as sometimes
happened. A Warsaw cvowd under existing cit._
camstanoes would no doubt tt7 the pll:ienee even