The Sun. — 1863-06-23 (London, England)

JUNE 14.  A communication from the neighbourhood of Zytomirz says that all is quiet for the present in Volhynia, except here and there where outrages of various kinds are committed by the peasants formed by the Government into bodies of freebooters. Some of the peasants are armed with muskets and fowling pieces taken from the insurgents. The others carry sithes, so that the Russians have now their kossyniere as well as the Poles. The last news is that in the vicinity of Zaslaw a Russian official had been arrested and made prisoner by the peasantry. For this achievement 10 of the captors received 160 lashes each to teach them not to arrest the wrong person another time. If love, not fear, were the chief actuating feeling of the Volhynian peasant, such conduct as this on the part of the Russian Government might turn him against it. In the woods about Slawuta bodies covered with wounds and stripped entirely naked are being picked up from time to time ; and a Hebrew gentleman from Brody, the capital of Polish Judea, assures me that the peasants who arrest and maltreat the proprietors, and murder helpless insurgents, are very anxious to get up a massacre of Jews. It is certain that in one district of Volhynia the peasants said to the officials, " We know how to act towards the nobility, but what are the Jews to have ?" and they afterwards begged hard to be allowed to treat them as they might think fit, " if only for a couple of hours." I have just seen a number of captive Poles in carts driven by Ruthenian peasants, who made a swoop upon the insurgents last night as they were crossing the frontier, and took 21 of them to the nearest Austrian post. It so happens that these amiable and highly civilised, highly patriotic Slavonians of Polish Ruthenia gave up their prisoners to men of the accursed Finnish race. The soldiers into whose hands they fell are Hungarians, and treat them kindly, and the proprietor of the caravanserai from which I write---who I don't think has studied either Duchinski or Lelewel, but is a better Pole than many who have-says, pointing to the Hungarians, "These are good, honest men ; they would not injure a Pole willingly, and we must give them cigars ;" and, pointing to the Ruthenians, " Those Greek peasants are beasts, they deliver up their own countrymen." The Poles were not wounded, but were driven off smoking familiarly and endeavouring to converse with their Hungarian escort.  Yesterday, again, at about 15 'miles' distance from my present quarters, I saw three Hungarian hussars in the custody of a dozen Austrian infantry, who were marching in the direction of the nearest town. These hussars had been called out, with many others, to assist the peasants in capturing 12 carts containing arms, ammunition, and uniforms, and on arriving at the spot where the carts stood, surrounded and guarded by Ruthenian " neutrals," who had already put their Polish brethren to flight, they gave a proof of neutrality after their fashion,---• that is to say, they rushed at the peasants and ad' ministered to them such a beating with the flat of the sabre as to make them howl and run ; after which 10 of the carts were taken quietly across the frontier. Two only, containing boots and caps, were brought back in solemn triumph to the Austrian post. Of course, the peasants complained ; of course, there was an inquiry into the affair ; and of course, some of the offenders had to be arrested, though it is said that the three who have been made prisoners were not more guilty than the rest of their com• rades.