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

THE POLISH INSURRECTION,

(from the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
WARSAW, Nov. 19.
'.leie telegraph continues to be in such a hurry
that it does not give itself time to verify the news
that reaches it. Accordingly, we are perpetually
being informed in Warsaw, via Paris and Louden,
of things having taken place in Warsaw of which in
Warsaw itself we had not heard, though we hear of
terrible things enough in the shape of sudden and
arbitrary arrests on mere suspicion every night, and
executions every three or four days.
There have been on the average two lives per week
taken on the part of the Government since I have
been in Warsaw, and hundreds of political prisoners
have been sent into exile every Sunday morning.
It is not true that 50 of the female prisoners from
the citadel have been sent into exile, but quite true
that two have been exiled. It is said that of the
suspected political prisoners 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
acrowd 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. "Europe," they have said to them-
selves, " does not 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-
doxes," and Europe has said nothing to the suf-
ferings of the Poles ; or rather it has spoken
a 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 bo thought impossible to touch
it except by tales of the most horrible and heart-
rending character. There is, unhappily, no need to
invent such narratives; but, at the same time, too
much 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 aro very sorry to leave it to go into
the country, that they are very gtad to get back
again here, and that their friends are very anxious
about them while they are away. A proprietor who
has 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. But it will not fail if it
be assisted from abroad, and without foreign assist-

ante 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
qu.estion of intervention or non-intervention

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
thirlg for
that
.. the porters to be told by the Russians
dooreleY.wculd be beaten if they did not keep the
they wou'i',and by the National Government that
; for
liaoba stabbed if they did not keep them
open
proprietors to be threatened, on the
other hand, 1e
they Withperaisted. fiscal execution and forced sale it
not paying their taxes; and, on
the other, with ne
The
Nodoxaecution by the knife if they paid
them.
instantly to give
way
Government, however, has had
itaYhwhenever it has put itself, or
without wishing
been brought, into direct
COD ffict with the G,reras
nment of Russia. It may still
receive its own taxes, blit it
possesses the means from can prevent no one who
special taxes to the Russians both ordinary and
were to last long enough, thii-a If the insurrection
()able draining of the
national purse would ultimately
put an end to tax-
payingaltogethcr, for tho excellent
rnea,son that there
would be no money left, at least
oil; among those
who have hitherto been known
reduced to
classes," and who are now being speedily" the richer
already mentiontdat
yhaatollt
specialof
bankruptcy. • I have
the 3,000 house proprietors ordered
income tax of 8 per cent., all but a few hundreds
obeyed the order on or before the appointed
Defaulters are now sentenced to pay 12 per
con.
before the 20th of this month, after which, in case
of farther 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-
vernment, but it is hoped they will not be executed.
By the way, are any members of the National Go-
veramont themselves house proprietors, and, if s°l
have they disobeyed their own commands ? And
how does it happen that the National Government
know so little of the views and intentions of the
house proprietors as a class as to imagine 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
18 true ; and that ladies have been '
insulted by the
Y~eoldiera and police in consequence of something in
their costumebeing approved—which, as far as
I can
le,rnate not :
is entirely untrue. As often as the
National
the orders of
Government contents itself with endorning
obeyed. Thetho Russian Government it is sure to be
of coloured clothes by
Journal says that the adoption
nothing but mourning
the ladies of 'Warsaw, after
nearly three years, ba gs had beets worn by them for
animated appearance. I
given the streets a gay and
do not
see it myself. A
grotesque and sad appear,ece .
sented. "It was time to s what is really pre-
Pul Put an end to this mas-
querade " says the correspondent
journal; but the fact is, the true masquerade
a Russian
querade has
only just begun; for you may ROW 8
eu Persons who
are grieving for their nearest relations dressed as
though they had no such loss to deplore, a
fune-
ral looking (if it were not for the coffin) like
shabby wed ding procession, and women crying their
eyes out at a secretly ordered service for the dead, at.
tired in all the colours of the rainbow. To the men
it does not n tatter much; but the women who have