The Sun.
London, England, 1832-01-07 00:00:00

gPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The lot of unhappy Poland, since its late
overthrow, is not, perhaps, worse than we had
anticipated, though certainly its calamities have
exceeded the most gloomy apprehensions of an
enlightened age. We have seen letters from
Warsaw to the 20th ult., descriptive of bar-
barities which only Russians could perpetrate,
and of patriotism which only Poles have lately
evinced. The latter, even of the lowest rank,
have shewn no disposition to receive with favour,
or to treat with confidence, their old oppressors.
The former have proved themselves greater
savages than in the time of the monster Suwar-
row and the Empress Catherine. The natura'
consequence of this state of mutual hatred—of
this intolerable despotism on the one hand, and
this patriotic indignation on the other—is a
continued series of cruel and exterminating acts
on the part of the conquerors, and of individual
resistance, or attempts at assassination, on the
part of the vanquished. Accordingly so far are
the Russians yet from feeling themselves secure in
Warsaw, that ever since they entered it a great
body of their troops have been commanded to
remain constantly under arms, and the horses
of their light artillery are kept harnessed to the
cannon night and day. Marshal Paskewitch,
who proud of his conquests over the Poles and
the Turks, now plumes himself only on the
eminence to which the favour of his master has
raised him, takes every method of showing at
once his fears and his abhorrence of the Poles.
He drives through the streets of their capital,
where he is detested, surrounded with a guard
of Baskirs, armed with bows and arrows, like
an eastern potentate. The University of War-
saw has been shut. Orders have been given
to all the establishments of education to dis-
continue the use of the Polish language, and
to allow the youth of Poland only to learn Rus-
sian. The French language has been strictly
prohibited in all seminaries of learning, and
forbidden even to be taught in private families.
The despots, " wise in their generation," justly
conclude that if men learn French, they will
read French books,—if they read French books,
and if they may imbibe French politics, they will
become so revolutionary, as to have no farther
reverence for the authority of the autocrat, or
taste for the discipline of the knout. All the
property, landed as well as moveable, of the
most eminent patriots has been confiscated by
the Russian Government, though confiscation
had long been abolished by Polish law. Thus
the magnificent nobles of the Diet, the power-
ful senators, and wealthy nuncios—whose
sway extended over districts like English
counties—are now stripped of their whole in-
heritance, and driven to beggary in foreign lands,
if they cannot be seized for domestic torture.
Generals in the army, Ministers, Ambassadors,
—all the celebrated supporters of their country's
cause in the late revolution—are in this predi
cament. Prince Czartoriski, who is now in
London, received notice only a few days ago,
that his noble estates at Pulawy, on the Vistula,
where he had collected an immense library and a
great museum, have been confiscated by the Em-
peror, and (oh ! despotism, how keen sometimes
is thy dart !) transferred to the great enemy of
his country, its conqueror and oppressor, Paske-
witsch ! The Poles who remain at home in their
own land, watered with the blood of their fellow
patriots, can do nothing to arrest such military
oppression, and such barbarous injustice ; but.
they manifest no inclination to display a slavish
acquiescence. As the Grand Duke Michael was
lately passing through the streets of Warsaw, ac-
companied with a brilliant staff, he was shot at
from a window, and the shot killed General
Berk, who was riding by his side. This fact
has not been mentioned in any of the Russian
Papers ; but it is not the less true : and though
it is an act which cannot he commended,
it may be taken as an evidence of the ex-
tent to which the Russians are abhorred in
Poland, and of the little chance of perma-
nent tranquillity under their barbarous tyranny.
—Times.

The Paris Papers contain a long and angry
discussion in the Chamber of Deputies, on the
very unimportant question, whether all the papers
and documents laid before the Commission of
the Civil List Bill had been properly communi-
cated to the Members of the Chamber, so as to
enable them to speak with a perfect knowledge
of facts in the future deliberation on the subject.
The Opposition on this occasion gave striking
indications of their dissatisfaction at the mag-
nitude of the proposed Civil List, and expressed
unequivocally their opinion that Louis Philip
ought to make his former revenues as Duke of
Orleans, subservient to the support of his court
as King of the French. It will be remembered
that his Majesty, with his characteristic pru-
dence, had divested himself of the vast income of
the Duke of Orleans in favour of his children,
before he put on the crown of France, which
must have transferred all his property to the
State. The deed by which this measure was
effected has been loudly called for by some
Members of the Chamber, and hitherto as pe-
remptorily refused by the King's friends. It is
not for us, who are foreigners, to decide on the
sum which would constitute an adequate income
for a French constitutional King. The Civil
List of the Bourbons was enormously high,
amounting to nearly a million and a half ster-
ling ; but it was necessarily burdened with great
charges. The income proposed for Louis Philip
by his good friend and Prime Minister Lafitte,
was 18,000,000 of francs a year ; and - since
" the glorious days" of July, his Majesty has
regularly drawn every month 1,500,000, or
1-12th of the sum, from the public treasury. It
is now proposed to reduce his allowance, as we
formerly mentioned, to 14,000,000 of francs, or
to 12,500,000, and the courtiers seem to think
this sum very moderate as an income, or very
penurious as a gift. According to our notions,
it is neither the one nor the other. It will
amount to more than half a million sterling a
year, independent of a provision of 40,0001.
for the Heir Apparent, and a dowry for the
Queen, it case she survives his Majesty. Out
of this no pensions have to be paid, nor any
great officers of the household maintained, as in
England, and no military household as under
the Bourbons. There are many other points
of difference, all tending to an economical
maintenance of the new dynasty, on which we
have not at present room to enter. One of
these, and not the least important, is the oppres-
sion of taxes under which the French people
now labour, and the extraordinary magnitude of
a war expenditure which his been incurred since
the revolution, without the excitement of the
glories of a war. We have already given an
account of the budget presented to the present
Chamber, and of several other financial statements
delivered within the year (for, from the provi-
sional state of things, no definitive arrangement
should be formed), but it may not be useless to
remind our readers of the chief items of expen.