The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-12 00:00:00

11U417GA1 Y.

A letter from Pesth, dated March 6, says :
" The Emperor Francis Joseph never reads news-
papers, neither does he care for them ; but his
Ministers cannot afford to ignore the opinion of
Europe, and are therefore very angry to see that the
English, the ,French, and the German press have
succeeded ;in getting regular and correct informa-
tion from Hungary. Baron Thierry, the Minister
of Police, is at his wits end to discover the cor-
respondents, and the means by which they forward
their letters; unable to get any hint from his detec-
tives, he resolved to have the' houses of the persons
most likely to be in connection with the foreign
press searched, and their private Rapers examined..
Accordingly the day before yestlrday the police
suddenly invaded, at six o'clock in the morning, the
houses of some twenty persons at Vienna and here
at Pesth, and carried off their correspondence and
private notes. Among the gentlemen thus surprised
and alarmed we find old Count Stephen Szechenyi,
the veteran reformer ; his son, Count Bela Szechenyi,
whose frequent visits to London have excited suspi-
cion, and his step-son, Count Zichy ; Mr. Hollan, a
distinguished officer of the late Hungarian army
and commander of the fortress of Peterwardein in
1849, who has lately published a pamphlet advocat-
ing the re-establishment of the Hungarian consti-
tution ; several German literary gentlemen, and
even Dr. Gutherz, a Vienna barrister, brother-in-
law to General Mayerhofer, eommander.in-chief of
the Papal army, were exposed to the same treat-
ment. The search was fruitless, but it has excited
the indignation of the people to a fearful degree,
since all the gentlemen they alarmed belong to the
upper classes of society, and nobody now feels safe
in his own house. The correspondent of the Leipzig
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung w:..5 discovered last
week, and has been imprisoned. He will be tried
for some trumped up charge, since he would be able

tojustify and io prove every word of his correspon-
dence if his printed letters were to be adduced
against him. Thus, Julius Sciross Y
' the poet, was
tried and sentenced to one Tear's imprisonment,
ap-
parently for having recited some treasonable politi-
cal poetry, thoughit turned out to be only on
criao-
liae
; whilst his real offence was, that he had become
intimate with some French prisoners of war, who
articles might have written some
in the French
papers about the misgovernment of Hungary and
the hatred of the nation against their rulers. The
poor fellow hs been carried a way in fetters to a for-
tress in Bohemia, where he will find plenty of fel-
low sufferers from Venetia. About sixty of these un-
happy victims of tyrannicalwar. suspicion have lately
arrived at Peter
w. were shut up indein on the Danube, where they
the dungeons of the fortress. . It
is perfectlyimpossible to get any . information
about their
andnames,nobotheynobody
bartetni now designated
dero
by numbers,
fortressf the
. knows their names
yu and former fcoormmuleraustation of.
11%. About one-half of them belong evidently to
the educated, well-to do classes; and there are
youths amongst them who have scarcely attained
their sixteenth year. The crime is as unknown as
their names, since they have never been before a
judge, and were even, according to the Government
papers, imprisoned in order to prevent them from
becoming dangerous to the state. I recommend
this fact to the peculiar attention of Lord Nor-
manby. About dduble the number have been sent
to the fortresses of Bohemia, whilst the prisons of
Innspruck and of the Tyrolese fortresses have be:n
so completely filled with gentlemen (signori) of the
Italian Tyrol, that the sentries had to be doubled,
for fear lest the prisoners should combine for
escape. I take this fact likewise from the official
Vienna papers.
The land tax has again been considerably raised
this year, and the Government officials have got the
order to levy everywhere half a year's taxe.3 in ad-
vane. Since such a measure cannot be carried
otherwise than by military execution, all the
superior county officials have got an officer of the
army, either on furlough or half-pay, to help them
to enforce the decree by military distraint. The
middle-class agriculturists-1 mean gentlemen who
own. between five hundred and five thousand acres,
who form the most enlightened and most patriotic
portion of the inhabitants—are much alarmed b
v
this measure, and looking to Bohemia, _
the Aus-
trian Carinthia-;
Styria, and Galicia, where the policyet. of
Government has entirely extinguished the
class of independent• gentry, leavingpropyietors,wbuot towwonclafrsosems
in the province, large
10,000 to 100,000 acres, or even more, and poverty-
stricken peasants, who live upon 10 to 36 acres—