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

witted at Warsaw, and above all at Wilna, 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 tcrture 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 woundedafterthhee
massacre of April, 1861, on which occasion
occupied a foremost place in the crowd (he
ore-
jects, by the way, with scorn thef Prince nonticoenGtohrattscahnay
additional warning on the part .
koff could have caused it disperse).to
months afterwards he was arrested and
accused Nine
in
oef
being connected with the " Central Committee,"
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 flow into a violent passion and ordered him
to receive 50 lashes, which were instantly applied.
lie 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 ho 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 Gen. Lan-
giewicz. After Langievvicz'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 Jezioranski, and to fight
on the Bth of the month at Kobylanka. Here he
was shot in the back as he was calling on his men,
and since then has been almost a cripple, though
he is now 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 mas •
sacred by Russian .soldiers, even when no battle
was going on. Any one visiting Poland who has a
sufficiently largo acquaintance among the Poles can
convince himself of such facts as these beyond a
doubt. Even Prince Gortschakoff knows, and has
in fact admitted, that the Russian soldiers in one
instance at least (and in these mutters 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 Go"erninent 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 and such acts of cruelty have' een
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 aro 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. Bat from the wild rumours
perpetually flying about Warsaw he will 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 Volhynia, 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-
rodounz, 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 out 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 Poiets 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 bo
worse than it is now, and if any Power could on any
Pretextui. bo got into a serious quarrel with Russia it
force. If allw
'night be most materially improved. Submission, it
"erns to them, would be the worst of all policies,
a" they will not submit except to overpowering
Louulrdope
ivonulpnbgel
tvhiee waterdzley.
terme, that were to entreat them to accept
reason for ,ontin
as" Ea Int r o e,'' additionalthey
i 5 troubled on our
n enr-etant aonree
of
land in its preen pmition ne
„e:551111e, and the more Europe
tot,bibe more it shall have
irpf,:). as apparmt
Rs' ang.`'r• We will moire this
manobrtanee in Europe,
The Poles
canse to be troubled and
nerhaps over-estimate their be alarmed.'.
but if the European nations
family living in one large house,
threengarded as one
member of this family who for somet.tmheree is one
been pinioned in his own room, and
whoiil:leit has
endeavouring to set the house on fire,
in the whajps
that during the general conflagration he may have
a chance of getting free. This, I suppose, is the real
(Lnger to Europe !An the P0Li4,44 (Fluter; though