The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-12 00:00:00

witted at Warsaw, and above all at Wilma, are not
felt in the kingdom of Poland and in Lithuania
alone.

I can scarcely pity those who have lost even their
dearest friends on the field of battle. These are
losses that can be spoken of, and are spoken of,
almost with pride; and before long, as the ardour
of the nation goes on increasing, it will be those
families whose relations have not fought at all who
will find themselves in the least enviable position.
I confess I reserve all my commiseration for
the unspeakable sufferings of those whose friends
have been executed, massacred, wounded, and hor-
ribly mutilated, sent with criminals into exile or
imprisoned in some Russian fortress and very pos-
sibly tortured. Many doubt and many more dis-
believe that the Russian authorities still use torture
as a means of forcing Polish prisoners to divulge the
names of their associates and chiefs. I cannot say
that they torture all prisoners whom they suspect of
having some connection with the National Govern-
ment; but that they tortured one last January in
the Warsaw citadel, under the impression that he
could and would tell the secret of the great Polish
conspiracy, this I can assert most positively. I not
only know the victim, and have heard the story of
his sufferings from his own lips, but two friends of
mine in whose house the poor fellow lay wounded
after Jezioranski's last battle, saw the marks of the
bloody operation on his back. This unhappy young
man first attracted the notice of the Warsaw
police by being among the wounded aafteeinrn ho
massacre of April, 1861, on which
re-
jects, by the way, with scorn the notion
ortsNchinae-
koff could have caused it to
occupied a foremost place in the crowdth(ahte
any
yadditional warning on the part
of
Princee
:se )G.
months afterwards he was arrested and accused
with the " Central Committee,"
being connected
a
since transformed into the " National Govern-
ment." A Russian General came to him in the
citadel, gave him tea and cigars, and asked him in
a polite and friendly manner to tell him what
the Central Committee really was. The
pri-
soner replied that he knew nothing whatever
about it, and as he persisted in his assertion the
general flew into a violent passion and ordered him
to receive 50 lashes, which were instantly applied.
Ho was then again entreated and commanded to
tell all he knew about the Central Committee, or at
least to mention the names of his associates and
(alleged) fellow-conspirators. Still refusing, and
pleading absolute inability to give the desired infor-
mation, he was ordered to be flogged again. Under
the second punishment he fainted, and remembered
nothing more until he found himself in the hospital.
Some weeks afterwards, as there was no evidence
against him and no information could be got out of
him, he was set free, and thereupon hastened to the
Galician frontier, and joined the army of Gcn. Lan-
giewiez. After langiewicz's defeat he remained for
some time at Cracow, and then, being appointed to
the detachment of Gregowicz, took part in the ac-
tion fought on Easter Sunday at Szklary, where he
received a flesh wound in the thigh. He was treated
for this wound at the Hospital of the Holy Ghost at
Cracow, and was well enough at the beginning of
May to take service under Jczioranski, and to fight
on the Bth of the month at Kobylanka. Here he
was that in the back as he was calling on his men,
and since then has been almost a cripple, though
he is new beginning again to walk and is already
looking out for another detachment.

It is certain, then, that since the beginning of
the present movement in Poland men have been
tortured in the Russian prisons, as they have been
mutilated in Russian battle-fields, and rnas •
sacred by Russian soldiers, even when no battle
was going on. Any one visiting Poland who has a
sufficiently large acquaintance among the Poles can
convince himself of such facts as these beyond a
doubt. Even Prince Gortschakcff knows, and has
in fact adwitted, that the Russian soldiers in one
instance at least (and in these matters one instance
is enough) barbarously wounded an unoffending
English subject. I find from the correspondence on
Polish affairs recently laid. before Parliament, that
when the Prince's attention was called to a letter in
an English newspaper giving an account of an attack
made by Russian soldiers on Mr. Finkenstein, he
replied that the account was "either incorrect or
exaggerated." But in this, as in other matters, the
acts of Russian Ministers are more important than

their words, and as the Russian Government has
since had to make heavy compensation for the out-

rage in question, it may bo presumed Prince
Gortschakoff is now aware that it was really com-
mitted. For my part, wherever I have stated posi-
tively that such itnd such acts of cruelty have been
committed by the Russians, I have always done so
on the strength of private information, obtained
from the best and nearest sources. Accounts of
greater atrocities than any that I have related ap-
pear from time to time in the Polish newspapers.
Unfortunately they are not incredible, but I have no
means of ascertaining whether or not they are true.
Finally if the foreign investigator wishes to see
how the Russians have governed Poland for the last
three years, in principle for the last 33, he should
go to Warsaw, when he will find the streets occupied
by soldiers of all arms, as though the city had just
been taken by storm. But from the wild rumours
perpetually flying about Warsaw he -Ain get no ac-
curate notion of what is going on in other parts of
Poland. If his chief aim be to study the Poles
themselves, their sufferings, their aspirations, and
their projects, and to hear the latest Polish news, he
should stay for some time in one or both of the two
chief cities of Austrian Poland, when he will find
not only Galicians, but Poles from the Kingdom,
from Lithuania, from Vollaynia, and, indeed, from
all parts of the territory of the ancient Republic,
many of them waiting only for the word of com-
mand to return to meet the Russians arms in hand.
If, however, he should wish to see the insurrection
in the Ukraine, then he must take care not to go
to the Ukraine itself, but must buy the Gazeta Na-
rodowa, in whose columns alone (at least so far as
Poland is concerned) this insurrection is to be
found.

SEPTEMBER 5.
In the general position of affairs in Poland
there has not been, and is not likely to be, any
change for the present, nor until after the Western
Powers and Russia shall, between them, have
arrived at some solution of the Polish question.
We shall then see this solution rejected by those
whom it chiefly concerns, and the Polish insurrec-
tion will probably enter on a new phase. It may
sicken and die, or it may be frozen ont of the
country by a hard winter, but for a time at
least it will rage more furiously than ever.
While diplomatic notes are being exchanged with
a view to the pacification of Poland, the Polish
insurgents are getting their winter coats ready.
"It is not the Six Points, it is that accursed snow
that we are afraid of," said an energetic chief to me
a fortnight ago, as he pointed to the highest peak
in the Carpathians already clothed in white. It is
now notorious that the Six Points signify nothing
to the Poles. The only point they care to try is
whether or not they can tire out Russia, or, by
giving a lasting character to their insurrection,
tempt or force some foreign Power to intervene on
their behalf. The motive of the intervention is to
them a matter of secondary importance. They
know well enough that no one will ever help them
for their own sake. But their position cannot be
worse than it is now, and if any Power could on any
pretext be got into a serious quarrel with Russia it
might be most materially improved. Submission, it
Saenecrtehteoy them,v i
I Would be the worst of all policies,
not submit except to overpowering
terms, that weld?: wthereesttrouengtlreat them to accept
force. If all Ear
reason for continuing wined
itsg onlyas an additional
say, "looks upon Polt:it:d"Europe," they
pe'resent position as
danger. -w,ao:etomreakzutohpies
a constant source of
re it. shall have
be troubled and to be alarnaed.'
truth as apparent as possible,
is troubled on our account, thaent
cause to
T
b
perhaps over-estimate their importance in
but if the European nations ma hEeuProoplee'
s
family living in one large house,
ye regarded a
then there ironnee
member of this family who for some time pa'st has
been pinioned in his own room, and who is always
endeavouring, to set the house on fire, in the hope
that during the general conflagration he may have
a chance of getting free. This, I suppose, is the real
danger to Europe from the Polish quarter ; thonh