The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-08 00:00:00

THE VOLUNTEERS.

The rifle match between 30 members—viz., five
officers, 10 non-commissioned officer:, and 15
privates from each of the West Middlesex and Vic-
toria Rifle Corps, was sbot off on Friday last at the
Stanmore range, near Harrow. The conditions of
the match were five shots each at 200, 500, and 600
yards; Wimbledon scoring and Enfield Rifles. The
weather proved most unfavourable. The total
scores made by the West Middlesex were 903 marks;
by the Victorias, 856 marks. The four highest scores
on the winning side were Captain Dear, 43 ; Lieu-
tenant Marriner, 43 ; Sergeant Barber, 41, and
Private I. W. Smith, 40. The four highest on the
Victoria side were Corporal Somervaile, 40 ; Private
J. Dawe, 38; Private J. G. Davey, 38; Corporal
Mortlock, 35. The three highest scores on the
winning side are entitled to three tankards, paid for
by the losers. The tie for first place was shot off by
Captain Dear and Lieutenant Marriner, and resulted
in favour of the former.

There is to be a Volunteer field-day at Harwich
on the 29th inst., when the brigade assembled will
be under the direction of Lord Ranelagh. It is not
yet positively decided what corps will attend, but
several companies from the metropolis and also from
Suffolk are expected to be present, and in addition
to local Essex corps. The redoubt at Harwich will
be manned for a mimic fight. _

On Saturday the Bristol Rifle Corps, in honour
of her Majesty's birthday, marched to Kingsweston-
common, a distance of about four miles from the city,
where, after a short battalion drill, they bivouacked.
They afterwards engaged in athletic sports for
prizes given by the Mayor of Bristol, who by virtue
of his office is honorary colonel of the regiment, and
others. A cooking detachment was told off, and
under the command of Lieutenant Burges, the
quartermaster, they proceeded to the ground some
hours before the corps. By the aid of a pontoon
cooking apparatus, presented to the regiment by
Mr. Thomas Proctor, they prepared dinner for the
regiment. There were about 500 of all ranks on
parade, and they were served with excellent stew,
ad libitum, a loaf of bread, and half a pint of beer,
at 6d. per man. The athletic sports consisted of
high jump, hurdle race, flat race, quoits, throwing
weights, &c., and a very pleasant afternoon was
spent, the corps returning to head-quarters about
10 o'clock.

On Thursday the Taff battalion of the Glamor-
ganshire Volunteer corps was inspected by Lieute-
nant-Colonel Clarke on the practice ground at
Aberdare. The men were under arms for several
hours, and they went through the evolutions in a
highly creditable manner. The battalion mustered
500 strong.

THE INSURRECTION IN POLAND.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
CRACOW, May 30.
Count Alexander Branigki, the proprietor o,
Bialocerkiew, and of immense estates in other parts
of the Ukraine, has been arrested and sent to Sara-
toff, in the east of Russia. The insurgents bad
taken 240 horses (magnified by journalistic licence
into 600) from his breeding stables, and he is, of
course, accused of having assisted the insurrection.
Bialocerkiew appears to be the great centre of the
movement in the province of Kieff or the Ukraine,
as Zaslow—the property of that Prince Esman San-
guszko who 30 years ago was sent to Siberia on
foot among felons by the Emperor Nicholas—is its
chief focus in Volhynia.
Up to this moment I do not think more than half
a dozen direct communications have been received
in Cracow from either Volhynia, Podolia, or the
Ukraine since the outbreak of the insurrection in
those regions. Several of these letters are written
in a very enigmatic style, but on the whole, in a
sanguine tone. However, in a letter received here
to-day direct from Dubin), in Volhynia, it is said
that the rising has hitherto been confined to three
districts in that province, and the writer evidently
cannot tell nearly so much about the Volhynian
insurrection as is known, or at least confidently
stated, about it in the west of Europ&.
There may be 15,000, or any greater or smaller
number of insurgents under arms in the three
south-eastern provinces, only the number cannot
be calculated, and people deceive themselves who
think they can tell for certain whether there are
more than 5,000, or less than 2QOOO.
As to the unfortunate insurrection near Kieff, a
traveller from that.eity confirms the accounts pub-
lished a few days ago by the Polish newspapers. A
hundred and fifty students of the University rode
out of the town in broad daylight. Sixty of their
horses are said to have been procured from a dragoon
regiment, which is just possible, inasmuch as Rus-
sian cavalry soldiers, with or without permission,
often let their horses out for hire. It seems strange,
however, that they should let out 60 at a time, es ce-
cially in a city like Kieff, where repeated demon-
strations on the part of the Poles against the Go-
vernment have taken place during the last two years.
According to one account, Oleszankski, the chief
of the band of students, did not hire but took the 60
dragoon horses. However that may be, the 150 in-
surgents rode out of the town in the middle of the
day, and soon after had regular cavalry sent after
them. The Russian troops were accompanied by po-
lice agents, who called on the peasantry to protect
themselves, for that the Poles had taken up
arms and wished to dispossess them of their land,
to massacre a portion of them and reduce tho re-
mainder to slavery. It may appear idiotic on the
part of the peasantry to believe such statements as
these, but for some time past they have heard no-
thing else from the lips of the Russian function-
aries employed to deceive and corrupt them. Tales
and pamphlets have been manufactured and given
away among them, as tracts are given away in
England, in which Polish landholders are repre-
sented as having obtained their property by robbing
o
and defrauding the peasants, and in which serfdom
(which was introduced into the Ukraine for the
first time by the
tßussians
when the adoption by
the Poles of a
Constitution
bad leditton by which seifdiln was
to the second partition of
their country) is r
tion inseparable frome presented as an institu-
tion
free and independent
Poland. Every Russian
of a serf knows what a po,,i:ove
insurrection the position
i above
means, and if any Russian
is
particularly
really
the fact that the peasantry of
can
struck by
n
on the subject let him remember thaatbiedeceived
8 months
ago the workmen of Moscow were easily persuaded
that the students of the Moscow University
w
the enemies of serf-emancipation, and that under
the guidance of the police they fell upon them, beat
them, and wounded many of them very severely.
In the same way the peasantry about Kieff, armed
and led on by the soldiers, fell upon the Polish