612 RECENT ATROCITIES IN POLAND. 



children, to send in a declaration to that effect, which was accordingly 

 done by a great many. Having thus obtained a long list of poor 

 children, they were immediately seized ; and in order to give a 

 colouring of justice to the measure, it was stated to be in conformity 

 to the wishes of their parents that the emperor took them under his 

 protection. As to the soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the 

 veteran legions of Poland, their children were seized by force, and 

 those who resisted were immediately delivered over to the military 

 tribunals to be tried for insubordination. However, the major part 

 of these men, settled for some time at Warsaw, had, by their labour 

 and savings, derived the means of educating their own children. One 

 of them, who possessed a house and garden in the Fauxbourg, and 

 whose son had been seized, having in vain petitioned by writing for 

 his release, found at last means of gaining access to the presence of 

 Prince Paskiewicz. Throwing himself with his wife at the feet of 

 the field marshal, he represented to him forcibly that he possessed 

 the means of bringing up his son. te What ! have you a house ?" 

 said the viceroy ; t( Good ; but the emperor possesses millions of 

 houses, he will therefore give your son a much better education than 

 you can." 



The little boys who used to hawk fruit and flowers about the 

 streets of Warsaw, were publicly seized for these all came under the 

 category of vagabonds and placed in the barracks of Alexander. Their 

 heads were shaved, and they were sent off into the interior of Russia. 

 To the frontiers of the kingdom they were transported on waggons ; 

 but once arrived there, the remainder of the journey was made on 

 foot. An eye-witness has assured us, that out of 450 children of the 

 first division transported, scarcely 115 reached Bobruysk alive : the 

 rest had either perished, or were left behind to do so in the Russian 

 hospitals. The next step was to seize all the male children of the 

 parochial schools of the capital! But this was comparatively 

 nothing to what took place in Lithuania, in Samozitia, Volhynia, 

 Podolia, and the Ukraine. There, children of both sexes were seized 

 at the caprice of subaltern military commandants, and dragged off to 

 the interior of Russia. 



To every column of these unfortunate creatures there were 

 attached some little Russian carriages (kibitki) for transporting the 

 provisions, and such children as were unable to walk. If a child 

 was taken ill on the march, he was abandonned in the Steppe, with a 

 portion of bread and water placed by his side, sufficient to last for 

 three or four days, Several persons recently arrived from Siberia, 

 have fallen in with the corpses of some of these unfortunate young crea- 

 tures, stretched beside the bread of which they had been unable to 

 avail themselves. They likewise saw Polish prisoners, though hea- 

 vily ironed, carrying in their arms some of these abandoned victims, 

 whom they had picked up in their line of march. Again, these 

 orders were executed in so arbitrary a manner, that the Cossacks and 

 Baskirs who escorted the columns of prisoners, frequently sold the 

 children to the Jews, or made presents of them to the Russian pea- 

 santry. But we will not descant more on the tender mercies of 

 the autocrat towards the innocent children of Poland. We shall pro- 



