RECENT ATROCITIES IN POLAND. 613 



ceed to the second means of annihilation of the population of Poland 

 " the conscription." It is true that we have seen an imperial ukase 

 which forbade the enlistment, in the Russian army, of the soldiers 

 and non-commissioned officers of the old Polish army ; but by a sin- 

 gular interpretation of the amnesty granted to those men who 

 returned from Austria and Prussia, it has been limited only to those 

 who possess some landed property an event of such rare occurrence 

 among this class of men in Poland, that in 40,000 there would not be 

 found perhaps ten who were by this means exempt from military 

 service. After having thus annulled the effects of the amnesty, the 

 soldiers were given to understand that it was a great favour accorded 

 to them that of receiving military pay in some remote part of Asia, 

 instead of punishing them for their revolt. The inevitable effect of 

 all these dispositions will be to deprive Poland of more than one- 

 half of her adult population. It would be impossible to describe the 

 terror caused by this ruthless order. On every side nothing was 

 heard but lamentations, and the low breathings of implacable ven- 

 geance. One woman, indignant at so many atrocities, cried out, 

 " May the tyrannical czar be drowned in the tears of Polish mo- 

 thers !" Young men of the noblest families are now serving as pri- 

 vates in Russian regiments at 4,000 or 5,000 versts from Warsaw. 

 Some time ago, the military commandant in that city, proposed to 

 the Polish officers of the late engineer and artillery corps to enter the 

 Russian service ; but they, one and all, though they expressed their 

 readiness to serve as civil engineers, refused to wear the Russian 

 uniform. The emperor, informed of this, commanded every one of 

 them to send in, in writing, the motives upon which their decision 

 was based. 



But what is another source of great abuse in Poland is, the pro- 

 cedure of the Russian court martials. Before passing sentence, they 

 are obliged to ask the field-marshal, the nature of the penalty to be 

 awarded. An auditor afterwards makes a report upon the affair, and, 

 without ever seeing the accused, they condemn him according to the 

 order they receive. After the capture of Warsaw a term was assigned 

 within which all the inhabitants were ordered to deliver up their 

 arms to the public authorities. A serjeant of the national guard had 

 in his house the firelocks of the detachments he formerly commanded ; 

 he accordingly ordered his servant to carry them to the arsenal. On 

 the eve of the expiration of the proscribed term, the servant, from 

 some trifling cause, did not go till the next day ; the serjeant was in 

 consequence immediately arrested. The officer who had to take 

 cognizance of this affair did not understand PoJish, and the ser- 

 jeant was equally unacquainted with Russian. They addressed a 

 few words to him which he did not understand, and then made him 

 get into a kibitka. It was only on arriving at the fortress of Zamosk 

 that he learnt he was condemned to six months' hard labour. When- 

 ever field-marshal Prince Paskiewicz appears in public, it is with all 

 the arrogance and ostentation of a Persian satrap. As he was one 

 day riding out, surrounded by a numerous staff, he met in one of the 

 streets a labourer, who was quietly pursuing his occupation, heedless 

 of the military cortege. Enraged at this " insouciance" and looking 



