The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-26 00:00:00

THE RUSSIANS IN POLAND.

The following letter, addressed by a Polish noble.
man to an English friend, has been placed in our
hands for publication. It gives a terrible picture
of the sufferings of the Poles in Volhynia :
__

" Volhynia, June 15.

"My dear C—,—l sieze the occasion which
has just offered of sending a letter across the fron-
tier (by* post it would be impossible to send one
telling of the real state of things here). I write
to you probably for the last time, as landed pro-
prietors who have remained at home with their
wives and children are in daily expectation of
death. You nay have heard, though it is difficult
to believe, to what inhuman means the Russian Go-
vernment resorts to get rid of all that is Polish or
Catholic. They have gladly seized the occasion of-
fered them by this insurrection to accomplish their
long•mcditated plan of .annihilating ail that is not
Russian in these provinces. Several months since
we were deprived of all arms or weapons of defence ;
now, by a Government order, we are informed that
we are no longer to expect any kind of protection
from them, and that they are not answerable either
for our properties or lives. Mean whil e,t he Govern-
ment officials and the Greek priests do all in their
power to put the Greeks against the Catholics ; and
Russian soldiers, disguised as peasants, with all the
ruffians, who have been let loose from the prisons for
this purpose, scour the country, attacking all the
country seats on their road where there is a chance
of plunder, pillaging, burning, and putting to
death all they contain, and destroying whatever
comes in their way. The cruelties perpetrated by
these bands are incredible; not content with
simply putting to death, they invent new tortures
every day. They screw their victims with iron
screws to the wall, knock their teeth down their
throats, tear out their eyes and tongue, and saw
living men into pieces; the woman they outrage
and then murder, as well as their children. My
pen cannot describe to what a fearful death we are
every day exposed ; and yet we must not complain,
for the committees of inquiry which are sent to
ascertain the truth of these atrocities always end
by rewarding the perpetrators of them, finding that
they had good reason for acting in that way. After
the engagements which took place in this neigh-
bourhood, at Slawzita, Miropol, and other places,
the Russians forbade any assistance to be given
to the wounded roles, and the more effectually
to prevent it, ordered the wounded to be buried
with the dead. Our priests are murdered at
the feet of our altars while in the act of offi-
ciating. With all this we have not the right
to leave our estates, but are obliged to wait pa-
tiently the cruel death which will certainly fall to
our lot ; for the peasants, in their simplicity, tell us
that the Government has informed them that on a
certain given day all Catholics, rich and poor alike,
are to be exterminated—this being the expectation
we now live in. One day, perhaps, those civilised
Governments who are now spectators of this bloody
tragedy will reproach themselves with not having
interfered more energetically; but we are resigned
to offer the sacrifice of our lives, if, by the Effusion
of so much innocent blood, our unhappy country
may one day be delivered from the hands of its
barbarous oppressors.—Yours till death, ' "

The CORSALETTO DI MEDICI.—In order to ex
plain adequately whet the Corsaletto di Medici is,
we must follow Clodius a pardonably short distance into
the sacred mysteries which he invaded. We know not how

it happens that the civilised part of the human race seems
always to be in some ridiculous and unaccountable hobble
about costume. But, however it may be explained, the
weakness is a fact which cannot be denied ; and it is cer-
tainly incident more to the female, than to the male, section
of humanity. The difficulty is now about crinoline, now
about a becoming head-dress, and now—with reverence be it
spoken—about stays. That the female frame must neces-
sarily be tightly supported by steel and whalebone, is a
maxim which has obtained among English matrons, more
or less, for several centuries. Of recent years, the medi-
cal faculty, seconded by a whole army of sanitary re-
formers, has begun to lift its voice in earnest azainst
the practice. It appears that stays produce every result
that is bad, without any balance of advantage whatever.
They limit the movements of the trunk, and degrade the
condition of the muscles from a firm to a soft and unhealthy
state. They further check the circulation of blood through
the muscles, by pressing them between their own hard sub-
stance and the bones of the chest; and the muscles accord-
ingly become wasted, or, in technical language, atrophied.
The heads of the profession cannot be reasonably charged
with not having spoken out. One eminent surgeon, heart-
lessly indifferent to the feelings of his fair, and still impri-
soned, patients, grimly points to the "wasted leg of the
mendicant" as an instance of the effect of pressure, assur-
ing them that that leg, "through tight bandaging alone,
can be reduced to the condition which excites our commis-
seration." Cruveilhier will only allow a small percentage
of the sex to be " free from some deformity of the liver, con-
sequent on the use of tight and unyielding corsets." And
Erasmus Wilson asks the point-blank question concerning
the same article of dress—" If we wished to produce curved
spine, could we adopt a more scientific or certain plan?"
Words like these were certainly calculated to produce, not
only a flutter within the artificial robur et as triplex of the
female breast, but also a crisis in the history of certain por-
tions of female costume. It was a great occasion; and, in
justice to Mesdames Marion and Maitland, of Oxford-street,
sole manufacturers and patentees of the Corsaletto di Medici,
we must admit that they have been equal to it. They pro-
ceeded to invent a substitute for the obnoxious article of
dress, " so truly in harmony with the highest type of beauty,
that the Corsaletto di Medici is so designated as suggestive
of the Venus de Medici,' the statuesque ideal of beauty of
form and womanly grace."—Saturday Review.
FRIGHTFUL ACCIDENT AT CREMORNE GARDENS.
—Last night an accident of a frightful character
occurred to Valerio, the wire-walker, at Cremorne Gardens.
For the last two months this acrobat has been successfully
performing on a wire cable measuring 600 feet; and last
night he had advanced nearly to the point from which he
usually returned backwards when the wire rope suddenly
gave way, and he fell heavily to the ground. a distance of
upwards of 60 feet, He was immediately taken up in a
state of insensibility, and attended to by two medical men
who happened to be in the gardens. It was found that he
had sustained a fracture of the skull, a broken collar-bone,
and other injuries. He was conveyed in an insensible state
to the Chelsea Hospital, where he now lies, the house sur-
geon holding out little hopes of his recovery. It was be-
lieved that the lightning playing upon the wire rope on
Wednesday night was the cause of the accident.
HARD WORK.—After a journey from London,
artificially lengthened for the purpose of exhibiting
her more completely, she was pitilessly dragged from her
carriage to a review, from the review to the theatre, from
the theatre to the bazaar, from the bazaar to the great din-
ner, from the dinner to the ball. When the ancient Teu-
tons admitted a young man to rank among their warriors,
it was their custom to try his endurance by recondite con-
trivances for inflicting suffering and hardship. The autho-
rities at Oxford, in the performance of their office as educa-
tors of youth, appear to have been acting upon this ancient
precedent in training their future Queen for the duties of
her toilsome career.
ST. LUKE'S HOSPITAL FOR LUNATICS.—" More
than a hundred years ago," says the Soctal Science
Review, with a grandiose flourish—leading to a rather pre-
posterous anti-climax, " when poor Noll Goldsmith, a raw
student, was reading up his bones,' Johnson struggling for
the dinner he could not every day afford, Garrick strutting
on Old Drury's boards, making its inmates laugh and cry
by turn ; when Sterne, the sentimental, was field:big and
preaching in the North, and little purky George the
Second, haunted by visions of Prince Charlie coning
"over the sea" with his too faithful followers, sleeplessly
turned and twisted, and kicked the clothes from off his
regal bed, six good citimens of London banded themselves
together to start a hospital fer lunatics."
THE LONDON CABBY A PARIAH.—` Let a cab-
are quoted in the London Review,
man," says one of the fraternity, w,,hgoosetoopainbiooonks.
stall—those eyes peeping from behind that shelf of
ler
tbmo omk
es
dmtaetee tl
yh
ti sa,kaans
ihse
sht
aans
da
apte r f cs t
bt aorwe a tnhde
nbao oiks s
ne
ol
guehst, and unless he becomes
fromaa gone." thebookseller's s
o,too, et xi -s
aBCipUurgc ho of
sb ee in
—g fa ng
youlu na d wwe waylheeonjmn edy go eu
wrheesnsi°ant-n-ahneseiesks for lodgings. If he isknown to be acab-
driver, the landlady tosses her head, with aNo i of proud
disdain. All this is hard to bear. The "contractor,'' who
is an owner of cabs, compels his drivers
e the
tor sign
agree-
ment to pay a certain sum per diem, varying from twelve
i-
cep aipeople
n shillingsppe y. news,
‘r I
out t o
ofhe
o have
puttingo t
i trebleu heard
ed a, andra
thetchhaeotimr
efenaarnaethendefaulterow ti
that
justifying exercise
they
prisonehi sy
themselves have
anyt Y
bulliedra diaenbfi y:
saying, My master won't trust me a shilling—there is a
chance of them (the fare) not summoning.' "
SECRET IMPURITY OF MORMONISM.--Joseph
Smith (says the Spectator)—than whom a more abandoned
debauchee and astonishing liar and hypocrite has never ap-
peared, even among his own followers—held and practised
certain doctrines, such as that of the expediency of syste-
matic seduction, which his disciples have since been com-
pelled to disavow in public, however closely they ralsY e an
fo r
ad-
here to them in secret.
A Chinese ambassador is to be sent to Paris in a
few months, who will doubtless prove ono of the chief fca-
urea in the next Perla season.

• THE INSURRECTION IN POLAND,

f--

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
BRODY, June 20.

It will, perhaps, astonish diplomatists to find how
little importance is attached by the Poles to tree
presentation of the three Notes on behalf of Poland.
As far as I can judge, it is generally feared, that in
order to get rid of the troublesome representations
of the 'Western Powers, the Russian Government
will consent to all the propositions, with the in-
tention of not carrying them out, and with the
knowledge that they will be rejected by The Poles,
who prefer the very hazardous chances of war with
a view to the independence of their country to an
arrangement which would have the appearance of
a final solution, and yet would not satisfy any of
their wants. What they are fighting for at the
present moment is the independence of Russian
Poland, or, if they cannot obten that, the union of
all the Polish provinces belonging to Russia into
one constitutional kingdom under the Russian
Crown. That also, unaided, they will not obtain.
Theßussians will never willingly reintroduce aPo ish
administration into the Ruthenian provinces, which
the Russians of the present day have been taught to
regard as almost entirely Russian, though they are
distinctly recognised as Polish in the Treaty of
Vienna, and are promised " national and represen-
tative institutions" in common with all other por-
tions of " the Poland of 1772." They were even
treated as Polish by the Emperor Nicholas until the
insurrection of 1830 broke out, and had a Polish
administration, and Polish law courts and schools
when Lord Palmerston wrote his celebrated despatch,
calling the attention of the Russian Government to
the fact that it had not yet granted the inhabitants
of these provinces a system of national representa-
tion. It would be considered a great concession not
to allow them to teach the peasants to read out of
Polish primers.
Indeed, so far from admitting that the educated
classes in these provinces have any right tothe main-
tenance of their language, the Russian Government
hes often declared the contrary, and it has lately re-
ceived a memoir from M. Pogodin, ex-Professor of
History at the University of Moscow, in which it is
seriously proposed to do away with " the detestable
Polish element" altogether in Vollaynia, Podolia,
and the Ukraine. Le Nord picked a quarrel with a
French paper which, by an error in transcription,
had stated that M. Pogodin wished not to "extir-
pate," but to " exterminate" the Polish element.
The word the amiable professor really used is, lite-
rally translated, " annihilate."
M. Pogodin, however, explains that he does not
want to murder the Poles or drive them away by
force (be will hear of " no bloody means such as the
Poles themselves employ"); he would have the
Government buy the proprietors out and send them
to the kingdom or wherever they like to go. In the
event of some hundred thousand families not con-
senting to leave a country where many of them have
been established ever since it has borne a name, and
where the so-called Polish " immigrants" have been
settled for five centuries—in such an improbable
event as this it is just possible that " bloody means
such as the Poles themselves employ" would be re-
sorted to.

I fancy all the Poles have ever hoped from diplo-
matic intervention is that it might lead to entangle-
ments which it would be necessary to cut with the
sword. In their national hymns and litanies they
pray for.war as regularly as in their Church litanies
they pray, in common with other Christian nations,
for peace; and they have, for the most part, said
frankly enough from the beginning, that if the
Western Powers really wished to assist them, mili-
tary support was the only support they cared for. In.
any case it is perfectly certain that the propositions
made to Russia by Austria, France, and England,
even if Russia accedes to them, will not be accepted,
though they may ultimately have to be submitted to
by the Poles. Diplomatists may console themselves
for this result by reflecting that even if they had
asked for and obtained a great deal more—if, for in-
stance, they had asked for and obtained the full
execution of the Treaty of Vienna in reference to
the ancient provinces as well as the kingdom—the
Poles would still not have acquiesced in such an
arrangement. Kosciuszko made the same reply to
Alexander 1., when consulted as to the wants of
Poland, that Count Andrew Zamoyski made the
other day, under similar circumstances, to the
Grand Duke Constantine, and afterwards to Alexan-
der II.; and the Poles, when (with the exception of
liosciuszko and a few other men not to be deceived-
by vain prosnies) they accepted and recognised the
sovereignty of Russia in 1815, did so only on the
understanding that the constitution of the kingdom
would be gradually extended to the other provinces.
It is well known that the proposed carrying out of
this plan was looked upon with great disfavour by
the Russian subjects of Alexander 1., while the
Russian subjects of Alexander 11. would be indig-
nant if any thought were entertained of annexing
to Poland territory which they have been taught to
consider as much Russian, as Calais and Dunkirk,
when freed from the English, were French.
The Polish question, however skilfully diploma-
tists may handle it, is quite insoluble if the inten-
tion in solving it be to satisfy both Russians and
Poles. lam assured on good authority that even
if Russia consented to an armistice, and agreed to
discuss the affairs of Poland in a Congress, the Poles
would still not acquiesce unless a representative of
the National Government of Poland were admitted
to the sittings. No one need be told that, even if
Russia would consent to meet a representative
chosen by some constituted body in Poland (which
is more than improbable,)
eda.delegate
wn Power, unable even to show his
cftroroembdeegnaintniaulwns,kitcnhild not possibly be received.
In the absence, then, of an intervention by arms,
it will be seen that, whatever Russia may reply to
the Western Powers,
continue—to the injury th
of no one except Russi
the Polish insurrection will
1 e Poles should remember,
a in a moral, and Poland in
a material point of view. Poland will be devastated,
and at last, no doubt the Poles will be obliged to
put up
with 'whatever position may have been made
for them, The insurrection, which was begun, will
also be ended in despair; but the Poles will not
have resigned their right to rise again in arms at
the first opportunity, when Russia may be weaker
• even than she is now, or when Europe may be
1 involved in a general war.

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