The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-25 00:00:00

Republic. Die advantage of procuring this consti-
tution would be the opening up a trade of mutual
advantage with a people whose boundless resources,
as yet but imperfectly developed, would be of far
greater importance than those of America have been
to us, for Russia with millicns of acres of virgin
soil is capable, with the aid of capital, of producing
all that America has supplied us with. All this
may be very true, but there are difficulties in the
way—some natural, such as the defect in supplying
cotton ; others artificial, such as the want of capital,
for that mighty agent will not travel abroad with-
out an equivalent, in some shape, and our aathor
does not suggest the mode of inducing it to
do so.

Then as to the constitution. No doubt
Russia wants one as much as Poland, but
both are in the same predicament—the one won't
give it, and the other won't have it from the blood-
stained hands of the oppressor, whose only order is
Obey, thou conquered slave." The writer justly
condemns the partition of Poland in 1772. At that
period the British Government had an ambassador
at Warsaw, and knew bat too well what mischief
was brewing, but little heeded the matter, for an
autograph letter of STANISLAUS AUGUSTUS to
GEORGE 111. had no effect, nor had the appeal to
the French King any better result. Shortly after-
wards both Kings had to regret their selfish indif-
ference to a brave people, caballed against by the
three despotic robbers—Russia, Prussia, and Aus-
tria--for the English lost the American colonies,
while France not only forfeited the Canadas, but
saw Royalty herself expiate the crime of oppression
on a Royal scaffold, and her people had to
redeem their freedom from oceans of blood. Such
is the justice which eventually overtakes the
wrongdoer. But the writer of the pamphlet in
question, while regretting the present position of
Poland, acquits the Emperor ALEXANDER 11. as
being irresponsible for the past, since he was not a
party to the transactions preceding the period of his
coming to the throne. This is strange logic ! He
considers Poland to ba recognised by all the powers
of Europe as a conquered kingdom, and as such
forming part and parcel of the Russian Empire
Itke;the rest of its dominions. He overlooks the
stipulations of the Treaty of Vienna in 1815, and
wholly ignores the broken faith and violated
promises of Russia at that period. But, in truth,
the writer loses his memory in his admiration of
the EMPEROR, who could not give a constitution
to the Poles without giving one to the Cossacks
and Little Russia, and indeed to his whole people.
And why should he not do so ? His liberation of
the serf, though allowed to be good in theory,
will be quite the reverse in practice, for
the new measure without a constitution will
leave the serfs worse off than before, for instead of
one master they will now have ten, and conse-
quently have so much the more to pay. Then, why
not give a constitution ? Because bribery and cor-
ruption rule in Russia from the highest to the
lowest, and the greatest robber is the most privi-
leged ; but woe to the little one. Even the EIIPE
ROR cannot do what he would for fear of the nobles,
and one-third of the public wealth is plundered by
the officials. This is truly a pleasant picture of a
country requiring foreign capital to develope its
natural resources.

Our author denounces the Poles for their pride as
being the root of their misfortunes; and not only for
their pride, but for their subserviency. " The low-
born, bending to the very ground, kisses the knees
of him only a little his superior ; the educated man,
the gentleman, kisses the shoulders of his superiors,
and only equals dare kiss each other on the cheek."
As an antidote for this, our author calls on the
charming and heroic daughters of Poland to forbid
the men to kiss each other any more ! He advises the
men to read the Holy Scriptures, and so to emanci-
pate their minds, for no subterfuge will admit of
disobeying the Ten Commandments. This is true,
but does it not come home to the Russians as much
as to the Poles, and more than all to his idol the
EMPEROR, for he who abets oppression shares the
crime, and if the present EMPEROR has not coveted
Poland he has kept a strong hold on the robbery of
his predecessors, and so breaks one of the ten com-
mandments, if not the better half of them. One
good deed the Emperor ALEXANDER has done ; in-
augurating his
.reign by freeing the serf, he has
emancipated both soul and body by distributiug the.
New Testament in the common dialect all over the
empire at the low price of eighteen pence—a boon
which his father NiaroLas had prohibited in any
other form than that used in the churches in the
old Sclavonic tongue, and understood by few be-
sides the priests.
Our author appeals to the Russians as well as to
the Poles to reform themselves—advice easier given
than followed, Ho commends them for
their hospitality, dividing their bread and
salt freely with the stranger, which charit-
able virtue covereth a multitude of sins,
—an exemption they greatly need, seeing, as he
says, that bribery and corruption are rife with them,
so much so that " their whole system is rotten to
the core, Their public servants plunder, their
merchants sell short measure pieces of cloth to the
Chiuese, silver articles with the proof mark on the
rims and the body of the article of base metal, and
when they cannot cheat their customers they kindly
try their hands on one another." This is a pretty
forcible picture, which proves that the writer has not
been thirty five years practising the Russian lan-
guage and observing their manners for nothing.

* Mann and Nephews, 39, Cornhill

IGORREEEND.IAyTeIIs
tSe r
eFaßyolllm Sr
nT N
ing Mr. johA
nT
BETTIIIVoNAL l\-
Humphreys, the coroner for Middlesex, received informa
don respecting the death of a female named Hockley, aged
35, who was found in a wretched state of des.titutlm at 14.
Nichol-street, Bethnal-green, under the following circum-
stances :—lt appears that the deceased was the wife of a
hawker in the streets, and she had been in a weak state for
some weeks past. One of the lodgers went into her room,
and found her in a dying condition upon an old bedsteae,
covered over with shavings. There was only a chair in the
room, and no food or firing. A messenger ran for Mr
Massinghana, the parish surgeon, who promptly attended,
and found the deceased sinking from want, fever, and ex-
haustion• He at once ordered stimulants, and sent to the
workhouse an order for food and clothing. The deceased,
however, expired shortly afterwards, and the medical gen-
tleman has ascribed her death to neglect and starvation.
About the same time Mr. Massingham was called to a
child named Joseph Hayes, aged 4 weeks, whose widowed
mother resided at 2, Old Nichol-street (in the same over-
crowded neighbourhood), who had been found dead this
morning. The father of the deceased died about three
weeks since, and an inquest was held upon the body, when
the jury returned a verdict of "Death from starvation am
fever." The child had lived in a state of exhaustion in the
same roow, and the cause of death was no doubt of fever of
a typhoid character, accelerated by want and destitution.
Inquests will be held.

THE Loss OF HER MAJESTY'S SHIP ORPHEUS.—
A public meeting was held at Portsmouth ot,
Thursday evening, under the presidency of the Mayor, Mr.
IV: Chambers, for the purpose of collecting a fund for the
relief of widows and orphans of those who perished by the
wreck of the ill-fated ship. A committee was .ormed, and
suitable resolutions proposed for the collection of subscrip-
tions, it being understood that the money so collected shoul(i
be hand ed to the Orpheus Fund Committee, the result of the
meeting recently held for the same purpose by naval officer.r,
and others connected with the naval and military services,
under the presidency of Vice-Admiral Sir M. Seymour,
K.C.8., at the Royal Naval College, her Majesty's dock-
yard, Portsmouth. A strong feeling exists that the widows
and orphans left by such sudden casualties as the loss of her
lajesty's ships Orpheus, Birkenhead, and Avenger shouli
receive the required assistance from some national source,
and not be permitted to depend upon local and private aid,