The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-11 00:00:00

death, and the execution is to take place in Warsaw
or Wilna. Alt accusations in regard to torture are,
of course, met by them with a flat denial and a re-
quest for proof, when it is evident that no proof can
be given, for to mention the name of a trustworthy
informant on such:a subject would b,3 to point out
him or her for immediate arrest. As prisoners are
not allowed to talk freely with their friends, and
are often not permitted to see them at all—never
except in presence of an official—it does really
appear difficult to know positively whether or
not they are beaten (as the Poles believe to b©
often the case) with the view of extorting con-
fession. Under the Emperor Nicholas there was no
mystery on the subject, nor is there now in Lithu-
ania, under the infamous Mouravieff. It is cer-
tain also—there are proofs of the fact—that two
gentlemen, named Rawics and Oborski, who were
lately arrested at Siedlee, in the kingdom of Poland
(in which district important discoveries are said to
have been made as to the organisation of the local
National Government) were violently beaten. M.
Oborski has since become insane, and if in his pre-
sent state he should speak of the torture inflicted
upon him the Russians will be able to say that he
is raving. It is seldom that a man likely to have
been beaten comes out of prison at all, unless to go
to Siberia. But some have contrived to communi-
cate with their friends ; others have atlastbean
liberated or have escaped ; as to others, again, the
condition of their backs has been known from the
state of their linen when sent out to be washed.
Torture by beating has been too long the custom in
Russia to be suddenly discontinned by subordinates
even if their superiors so ordered it.
In the country, too, throughout Poland, persons
are habitually beaten who refuse, or are unable, to
give information as to the position of insurgent
bands, which it is taken for granted they must have
seen. A German dealer in furs, who lately arrived
in Warsaw by the high road from Moscow, com-
plains publicly of having been treated in this fashion
by Cossacks. An officer to whom he appealed for
redress, offered, it is true, to punish the Cossacks
who had committed the offence if they could be
pointed out, but without taking any steps to disco-
ver them himself.

As to the flogging of women, it is known that the
Grand Duke Constantine, on his arrival in Poland,
positively forbad it, and it is to be hoped that the
veto will be maintained by General Berg, hitherto
only the Grand Duke's substitute, but who, it is
said, will soon be formally appointed his successor
in the office of Namietnik. Nevertheless, three
young ladies were arrested here the other day (the
daughters of a rich brewer named Klav6), and the
youngest of them, a girl of twelve, whipped, in
order to make her tell the names of the visitors at
her father's house, the ordinary subjects of their
conversation, and so on. Who is immediately re-
sponsible for this barbarous act I cannot say ; but
the poor child was whipped.

Besides the prelate Bialobrzoski and the canons
Stecki and Wysychi, I should have mentioned in
one of my last letters that another eminent person-
age, Hiszpanski, the celebrated Siberian bootmaker,
had been arrested. The Rabbin Meisels is not, as has
been reported, in prison, but has taken a hurried de-
parture for foreign parts. The prelate Bialobrzoski,
it may be remembered, after being sentenced to
death for having closed the Warsaw churches, had
his punishment commuted to exile, whence, together
with all the persons above-named, he was recalled
by the Grand Duke. A returned political exile is
probably looked upon by the Russian Government
very much as a ticket-of-leave man is regarded by
us. At all events, some dozen Siberian Poles have
been seized during the last week or two, perhaps
simply from a unreasonable idea that having
once been in Siberia they cannot feel well disposed
towards Russia. Among those known to have been
exiled to Siberia during the past week is M. Kru-
pecki, of the ZAmoyski house. Count Stanislaus
imoyski is still in prison, and the Russian journals
continue to attack him, though he has not yet been
tried, as if it were really known that he had com-
mitted some offence.

M. Wenglinski, formerly a member of the Uoun •
cil of State, one of the most influential men among
the moderate party, and one of the greatest oppo•
nents of the insurrection, when the insurrection was
first meditated, was arrested a few nights ago—no
one can possibly imagine why. An unintelligible
domiciliary visit has also been paid to M. Mianowski,
the rector of the University. M. Mianowski was
formerly physician to the Luke de Leuchtenberg;
he spent a great portion of his life at St. Peters-
burg, and is thought by his own countrymen to be
a very unlikely man to be mixed up in any sort of
insurrectionary movement.

Of Mieroslavveki, " the great militarist who has
all the theory of war in the knot of his sword," we
have no news; but we know already the best and
the worst that the Mieroslawski men can do in
Poland. They are now, and have been for some
weeks peat, on their trial, and we do not find much
change in the manner of conducting the general
affairs of the Polish insurrection, neither more
energy in the war department, nor much more un-
scrupulousness in the department of public crimes.
The attack on General Berg, and the burning of
the Town-hall, may be Mieroslavian acts, but the
entry of the well-armed, and tolerably well-orga-
nised, detachments of Czschowski and Waligorski
from Galicia had been arranged long before Miero-
slawski had anything to do with the National
Government. I remember the recruiting for these
detachments some months since, and just outside a
certain town in Galicia saw the recruiting agents
with their portable desks and perambulating secre-
taries, first in one field and then in another, dogged
from day to day by the police, bat doing their work
very regularly and constantly adding to the num-
ber inscribed on their rolls. I suppose the Russians
will at least admit that the men engaged in this
manner were not driven into the insurrection by
force. To pretend that terrorism on the part of the
National Government keeps up the insurrection in
the kingdom is absurd enough ! to maintain that
any system of terrorism can compel men to join the
insurgent bands entering in the face of all sorts of
obstacles from Galicia is worse than ridiculous.
It is also an error to assert that the bands which
recently passed from Galicia into the Kingdom
were composed, to any considerable extent, of
foreigners, or that this latest expedition was, more
than any previous one, the work of that bugbear of
bad Governments known as " the cosmopolite revo-
lution." The Russian authorities know nothing, as
yet, about that part of the matter. I know that
between the villages about Tarnow and the Carpa-
thian mountains I saw upwards of 100 insurgents
destined for the expedition in question, and among
them could only find eight or ten foreigners, for the
most part Garibaldians, who complained that the
Polish insurrection was not nearly so great an affair
as they had expected, and who already (at the end
of August) were tired of waiting to be let into the
eiietny's country. The half hundred Hungarians
Who
joined the Polish insurrection had, for the most
Part, had enough of it after Lelewell's last cam-
ZtaaniVtynd those Hungarians who did join were
actions
thusiesiih sot revolutionists, but simply brave, en-
jeets tht:aten, who were willing to testify by
have manifes
of everyBYraPathy for the Poles which the sub-
tcertitutional Government in Europe
beernorlithem in words. Some few are
said to have
their own country; negatians of good position in
to the best class
of Ostttep I know to have belonged
and gymnasiums, tcarts at Hungarian colleges
men I have seen is
last detachments (there
the P add
v:7 ardent republi-
that all the French-
Prinelopflets have 1
en' Ferzeiheasmen of
were very few iu these
cans, though it is known thatfinglthratiningonotnantehe
60, for
royalist
Poland
Russian Government towards a side h
The
conduct of the
tbaeennd
is detested in all civilised countries, and. this liter
de-
testation coustitutes cosmopo , evolutionism,
then
the "cosmopolite revolution' no doubt exists in
cs strop°. force, before which
Europe, and is a I sooner
or later, and in same form or other, Russiawill have
to bend.
It is probably now understood that the entries
from Galicia have no importance except as demon-
strating that the armed insurrection still exists,
and that it may continue to exist for some consider-
able time longer—in fact, until the Russians can
contrive to render such entries impossible. As to
the fate of ale last expedition, I believe it is true