The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-02 00:00:00

property and to have taken a full share of the spoil.
If so, whatever the social acquirements of some of
these gentlemen may be, it may be said that despot-
ism in Russia, however much it may " soften the
manners," developes at the same time a considera-
ble amount of actual ferocity. In any case the
assault and the pillage were expressly ordered and
directed, and, accordingly, it is not the soldiers
alone who ought to be held responsible for the
I atrocities that were committed. After the shells
had been thrown and the pistol-shot fired, a
sent back
an hour elapsed before General Berg
Gen. Bebutoff with soldiers despatched
for the express purpose of robbing two houses in
the vicinity of which the murderous outrage (for
such undoubtedly it was) had been committed,
but neither of which was the scene of the outrage,
nor the place from which it was either conceived,
planned, or put into execution. Nothing
was
thrown or fired from the house belonging to, but
snioatn
s occupiedk know
o by the,
perfectly
l yt
hs
akti
tfha
emzi
m, aond h
ys
kti palace
is the very last place from which it could be sup-
posed that an attempt at assassination would be
made. Indeed, it is not pretended that it was made
from the latter building, only it is said now that the
two buildings form but one, and as this happens to
be a simple untruth, an edict has been published
ostensibly with a view to future occurrences, but in
reality to give a semblance of legality to the flag-
rant wrong that has already been perpetrated. First
the Official Journal calls houses which stand apart,
and have no sort of connexion with one another,
except through the proprietor, " the united houses ;"
and then the director of the police, perceiving that
the falsehood of the Official Journal must soon be
exposed, issues an order which makes proprietors of
houses equally responsible with actual occupiers for
whatever breaches of an improvised law may be
committed within them. It would look strange in
Europe (and will have a curious appearance as it is)
that Count Z imoyski, living in Paris, should be held
responsible and deprived of the greater part of his
fortune, in consequence of an offence having been
committed in the neighbourhood of houses belong-
ing to him in Warsaw; so to put as good a face as
possible on the matter it is suddenly arranged that
the punishment already inflicted upon him shall be
made right and proper by a " posterior" order,
framed as far as possible to suit the particular cir-
cumstances of his case. The police order in ques-

tion is as follows :
" To the Chief Police Master of Warsaw.—Tho recent
outrages and assassinations have shown that the proprietors
of houses, inmates, and inhabitants in general of this town
not only do not assist the Government in seizing the crimi-
nals, but even facilitate their flight or screen them from the
search of the police. I, therefore make known for the in-
formation of the public, by explicit order of the superior
authority :

" 1. That in case of an attempt being made on the life of
any person in the street, and the perpetrator not being
caught, those who may have witnessed the attempt withoat
rendering all possible help towards catching the criminal
will be punished with all the rigour of martial law.
"2. If the criminal, after having committed the act of
assassination, or after only attempting it, takes refuge in a
house and is not seized there by the proprietor or the inmates,
the house will be immediately sequestrated, without indem-
nity, for the use of the army, and the inmates ejected.
"3. In case of assassination, or attempt at assassination,
committed in a house or courtyard, if the perpetrator of the
act be not seized and delivered up by the proprietor or the
inmates, then the proprietor as well as the inhabitants will
be subjected to the utmost rigour of martial law, and the
house, with everything in it, be delivered up to the military.
" 4. The same liability will be incurred by the proprietors
and inmates of every house, if an act of assassination, or at-
tempt at assassination be committed in or from it, either by
shooting or otherwise.

" Major-General LEWSZYN.
" Warsaw, September 10 (22), 1863."

I now give the official account of the outrage
actually committed as inserted in the journals of
Warsaw :

"The day before yesterday, at 6 o'clock, when his Excel-
lency, Commander-in-Chief, Aide-de-Camp General, Count
Berg, performing the functions of Lieutenant, deigned to
pass along the street of the Cracow suburb, attended only by
one officer and eight Cossacks of the Kuban, as he was in
front of the united houses of Count Zamoyski a shot was
tired, while at the same time several Orsini shells and a cave
filled with explosive substances were thrown. The paletot
of his Excellency was pierced, and one Cossack, two carriage
horses, and seven Cossack horses wounded. The united
houses were immediately surrounded, the lodgers taken out,
the male lodgers arrested, the furniture thrown out and
burnt. As it was found that some of the lodgers had their
things packed up it was supposed that they must have
known beforehand of the attempt on General Berg's life.
The said houses were immediately given up for ever to the
administration of the army.

The " supposition" that because a few persons in
a house containing 1,500 inmates had their things
packed up those persons must therefore have known
that an attempt was going to be made on General
Berg's life is certainly creditable to Russian inge-
nuity. As to errors in statement. I have already
explained that what the Official Journal calls the
" united houses" are not united at all, but are quite
apart. Each, moreover, presents an extensive front,
so that if a shell had been thrown from one it would
be difficult to " suppose" that it had been thrown
from the other. " His Excellency's paletot," more-
over (which the official journalist seems to have re-
garded as something much more important than the
wounded Cossack or even the wounded carriage
horses), was pierced horizontally and in such a man-
ner that the shot which passed through it must have
been fired, not from any of the apartments in the
house, but on an exact level and from the pavement.
It is said, in fact, that the attack was made from the
pavement in front of an empty building facing the
Zamoyski palace; but the empty building being
already Government property could not be confis-
cated, and being without furniture could not be
sacked. The sacking of the Zamoyski house lasted
from 6 p.m. until 10. Then, all that bad not been
carried away or thrown out of window and burnt
was left for the rightful owners. Probably not
much jewellery remained. The Chopin piano had
already been destroyed, and Professor Kowalewski
is now advertising for his Ori'ental manuscripts in
case they should have escaped the flames. The fate
of books, manuscripts, pictures, and literary and
artistic treasures of all kinds in Poland has not
changed much for the last century. The library
founded by the Zeluakis was plundered by the
agents of that superior woman --the admiration of
the writers of the period—Catherine the Great; and
its contents form :tow the chief part of the Imperial
library of St. Petersburg. There was renewed book
stealing in 1830 under Nicholas, who was not over
fond of literature. Now mere robbery of books has
come to an end in Russian Poland, and literary
arson has taken its place.
The most learned historian of modern Poland was
consulted the other day as to the materials existing
in the country for a life of Sobieski. Szainocha
(w'ao from excessive study has lost his sight) could
only dictate in reply that abundant materials for
such a work had existed in the ancient libraries of
Warsaw and Cracow, but thatthos
theliebpralariceesshriacvhiensgt
been plundered at various periods,
in documents relating to the great Polish hero were
not St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Berlin. This let-
ter, addressed to a distinguished Freech Professor
was written without bitterness, and set forth the
simple truth. What will Kowalewski say now if he
is consulted as to the result of his five and thirty
years' studies in Kazan, in the too familiar Siberia,
on the confines of China, and in Pekin itself ? The
Russian Government exiles a boy of genius from
Wilna to the far east of its empire. The boy, find_
ing that his fate is in strange lands, studies those
lands and their languages. The Russian Govern-
wee t, with a passing gleam of intelligeece, p
him, turns his talent to account, and finally offers
him a professorship in the capital of his native coun-
try, and endeavours, when it is too late, to make
it understood that if for thirty years it has pro-
.
all
.public instruction of a superior kind
alive to its error at last,
promote the diffusion of
whom it had until that
kenroisbveldiagde Bin"- to state of ignorance and
ince a
leetishaes; breetachl3olmysecto
from tho east, could
atiiiniaethsyo.llglE--It'°twoar;s,ktih' erli'imacilnrc' ached the west when
scarcely have thought
" Is this some part of
he arrived in Warl'a •
t
Asia?" poor Sierakowski,
head Quarters wounded and captive, ex-
claimedgean of the detachment that
when the sergeant
was conducting him to
officer if, in case of a sudden attack, asked his
attack,
he should kill
the prisoners. Asia is made responsible by the
Poles for a great deal of barbarian Which is, unfor-
tunately, almost as much European as it is Asiatic;
but Kowalewski, 413 an " orientalist," mint really

have found himself at home in Warsaw. Ali that
he could have missed there was peace and the op-
portunity of pursuing his studies without getting
his papers burned.
The notion of burning Chopin's piano is, I sup-
pose, not particularly Oriental. One significant
thing in the work of destruction was, that no port-
able articles of value were sacrificed. The children
of Holy Russia did not allow their divine rage to go
beyond certain limits, and it was only what could
nut be pocketed or conveniently carried away that
the avengers of disturbed order devoted to the
flames.

The Government of Warsaw and of all Poland is
now entirely in the hands of the Russians—in fact,
of the Russian soldiers and police. But on every
inch of ground not occupied by the Russian sol-
diers and police there the National Government
rules and is implicitly obeyed. Is it " terrorism,"
as the Russians pretend, that makes this Govern-
ment so powerful ? I think not, and lam sure that
there is lees cause for alarm in a camp of insurgents
than at the present moment in the streets of War-
saw. The last of the Poles have now abandoned,
or been forced to leave, their official posts. M.
Ostrowski, a relation of the Marquis Wielopolski,
has been replaced in the Ministry of the Interior by
General Rozuow. The successor of Count Sigismund
Wielopolski, as President of the Town, is General
Witkowski. General Rozuow and General Witkow-
ski were both members of the Inquisitorial Commis-
sion of the Warsaw citadel. It is said that General
Roc sadowski, formerly chief police master of War-
saw, is to be made Civil Governor.
The police have issued an order forbidding per-
sons to enter private houses where they do not re-
side, and cautioning house porters against allowing
this order to be contravened. They have at the
same time deigned to command that no one who
enters a refreshment house or tavern shall remain
there for more than ten minutes. I mention these
curious facts for the benefit of visitors to Warsaw
who may have letters of introduction to present, or
who may be in the habit of devoting not less than a
quarter of an hour to luncheon.

The truth about the reported " insurrection" in the
Ukraine is that there has been no political move-
ment whatever in that province, no talk about a
hetman, and no manifestation, direct or indirect, in
favour of Poland. But the peasants have risen by
thousands; and my informant, who has arrived in
Cracow from the disturbed districts, just before I
left that city, estimates at six thousand the number
who showed themselves ready to resist the Russian
Government in his immediate neighbourhood. The
cause of the rising is simple, but formidable. I say
" is," because it still exists, though for a time it may
be inactive. What is now called the Ukraine, it
must be remembered, is not the Russian or Little
Russian province to the east of the Dnieper, the
country of Mazeppa and the wild horse, but the pro-
vince to the west of the Dnieper which remained
Polish until the second partition and which at present
is styled in official language the Government of Kieft.-
The Russian or Little Russian or Ruthenian peasantry
of the Ukraine have never, since the massacre of
the haydamaks in 1768, been suspected by the Rus-
sian Government of liking the Poles. But they also
do not like paying rent either to Poles or Russians
for land which their fathers once held as freemen;
and it is the rent question, or rather the land-t"
question, which has brought them into conflict with
the Russian troops. The Russian Government'
some weeks since, declared the peasants of the
Ukraine tree proprietors, but at the same time put
a tax upon their land and called upon them to pay
into the hands of the Government the arrears °I
rent or obrok due to their former landlords. The
peasants would do nothing of the kind. They let it
be clearly understood that they would pay no one,
and though force was employed against them, and
though after the disturbances were at an end, seve-
ral chiefs of villages were severely flogged, yet the
peasants gained their point. They have not paid,
they will not pay, and the whole question is put off
until October, when still they will not pay. Here
is a clear case in which the Russian Government has
Het the peasants against itself, and with the
ability
it has lately shown in ruling Poland there is 11° say-
ing whether it may not ultimately contrive togaintheir enmity as a class. The peasants, like the in-
tervening Powers, will move if they find their own,
interests threatened, but not otherwise; and if such
a movement should take place at ell it will probably
become general. Insurgents will tell you that In the
Palatinates, where the peasants are most
favourably
f
disposed towards them (as, for instance, in those of
Lublin, Kaiisch, and Plink), the reply invariably
given when they are asked to join the insurcection.
"We must see what they do in the nest village :
if they join, we don't mind joining, but not alone:
the same way the peasants in any given promoe
are likely to claim the absolute property of their
land, independent of all taxes and dues, if such a
claim is made by the
peasants, their
the
and if any one province takes up arras
indeed
onis
question, nothing is more likely, nothing
certain, than that the adjacent provinces will follow
its example. It will be intereating to Bee whet the
Russian Government will do with the peasants of
the Ukraine after the October quarter. neighbours ;
be said at the present moment is that after playing
with socialist weapons throughout Poland it has
contrived in one province at least to cut its own
fingers. All that can

However, if the Russian Government cannot get
the money it wants from the peasants of the Ukraine
and is afraid to press for it, it makes
no ceremony
with the proprietors either of that province or
of the contiguous one of Volbynia- The ordi-
nary taxes have at last been paid everywhere in
n The
Poland, except in the Kingdom, where they are
now being levied by executio ecial!war-
tax of 10 per cent. on income is, being demanded in
proprietors
who do not pay up forthwith (which very few are
the south-eastern provinces, and those
able to do) have soldiers
on them and
their property sold. The so-called tax of 10 per
cent. may be a tax of 20 or 30 per
quartered
cent., for it is
fixed in an arbitrary
manner, and it is not every
proprietor of the south-eastern
provinces who can
overcharge. go to Kieff to complain of an
Accord-
ing to the terms of the Published order, persons
considering themselves unduly taxed might appeal
within three weeks ; but I know of cases in which
proprietors have been exorbitantly over-taxed, and
allowed only a few days for making
the payment
demanded, without the alternative of execution,
and without any possibility whatever of appeal.
This tax is, in fact, a heavy fine laid upon the
Polish proprietors to punish them
for thelpart they
have taken in the insurrection, and so to cripple
them as to render it impossible for them to aid it
any longer by money contribution. Many of the
Volhynian landowners have already had their
crops and cattle seized,
and as the Government de-
mends from every one so
much as it pleases, it will
of course succeed in ruining a great number of Polish
subjects. Such a proceeding seems strange even from
i
a financial point of view, but Russia probably thinks
that unless she impoverishes and exhausts Poland
she may one of these days lose it. Under Nicholas
the great idea NM to suppress education through.
out the country. The chief notion now is to waste
and confiscate property ; and it is probably quite
true that if all the Poles were lamentably ignorant
and lamentably poor they would not give Russia
nearly so much trouble as they do at present.

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