Did the Polish nobleman, selfish and wicked as now seems the fashion to describe him, force the peasant of Samogitia to servile work, when the latter had an opportunity of drawing a good profit from the results of his labor in the neighboring marts of Memel, Liban, Riga, Mittau, Venden, etc.? No, must we answer to our readers. There might have been seen a boor's wife dressed in sky blue lined with fox fur, and drawn to church in a comfortable kolaska, by two excellent, plump, Samogitian ponies; and neither did the father of the family exhaust his strength in night watches or day labor, as he had twenty teams to dispose of, and could offer to an unexpected visitor a broiled chicken with milk sauce, and a couple of bottles of brown stout from Barclay, Perkins & Co., of London. Such prosperity, although then declining, was still to be found in 1830. Why does it not exist to-day? Let this question be answered by civilizers and democrats from Tambow, Saratow, or Penza, and their jealous apologists.
Our writer seems to think he has made a wonderful discovery when he exultingly exclaims: 'How surprised these pretended liberals would be to see that their efforts only tend toward reconstituting a monarchical Poland (was Poland really monarchical?—we may doubt) under the protection of a feudal and Catholic Church!' Such charges were also made in the eighteenth century, and were suggested by similar motives. I do not feel called upon to defend the Catholics of Poland. I would simply retort upon the authors of such suggestions, by referring to certain distinguished rabbis, as Heilprin, Meintzel, Jastrow, etc.; to Protestants, as Konarski, Potworowski, Kasaius, Krolikowski, Czynski, and hosts of others; and also to Mohammedans, as Baranowski, Mucha, Bielak, etc. I cannot condemn a man because he is a Catholic, because I have everywhere, and in every religious community, found both patriots and traitors to their country, to their origin, to principle, and to their religion. But this I must say, that of whatever denomination or sect be the minister or priest, he has a right to be a faithful son to his fatherland and race. It happened that in Poland the Catholic priest stood opposed to the Rossian pope. If the latter can be a Rossian patriot, why should a like sentiment render guilty a Polish priest? This animosity in certain circles proceeds from a partiality to the Rosso-Greek Church, which, some years ago, during the visit of the emperor Nicholas to England, certain ignorant or du. By way of parenthesis, we may add that the Rosso-Greek Church separated long ago from the Eastern Greek Church, preserving, however, all its outward forms. Peter I. abolished the patriarchate, introduced his own classes and reforms, and made himself head of the church. He gave the name of synod to a permanent council, nominated, appointed, dismissed, controlled, rewarded, and punished by himself, according to his own judgment, passion, or will. The Græco-Rossian Church is kept under the same discipline as the army, and an offending pope is sent, with the rank of private, to some remote regiment.
The author of the letter from Paris somewhat contradictorily asserts that the women, being superior in Poland, govern the men, but are themselves governed entirely by the priests. This scarcely tallies with strict logic; but, for the sake of truth and of a just respect for our mothers, who taught us to love our country and freedom, who gave us strength in exile, and faith through persecution, and who instructed us how to think, and inspired us with those noble sentiments, seemingly denied to the mothers of the 'fashionable civilization' (of St. Petersburg), among whom there is not one lady writer—we will thank this writer for the refutation offered by him to an impudent slander, emanating from a contributor to Chambers' Magazine, of January last. We repeat that we thank him for his just tribute to Polish women, however inimical he may be to the Polish cause, and however much he may depreciate our sex. Yet it seems strange that, while accusing Polish women of being entirely under the control of the priests, and hence to have been chiefly instrumental in fomenting the last insurrection, the author did not notice, or is purposely silent regarding, a fact which, as he appears to have been longer in a Galician chateau than elsewhere, must have fallen under his notice, namely, that in Galicia, the Polish priest was the most decided opponent to any insurrection. How, then, could the active Polish women-patriots be instruments of the action condemned by the apologists of the absolute government of Rossia?
The admonition to France, on the ground that, after the revolution of 1789, she is committing a contradictory error by showing sympathy toward a revolution gotten up by priests, is but a consequence of the first judgment, and we may leave to France and her sense of her own interests to do what she may think right and profitable. We will simply mention that, for French glory, and for this error, as the author calls it, two hundred thousand Poles were slain in Egypt, Italy, San Domingo, Spain, Germany, Holland, and on the plains of Mozajsk, Kraslaw, Boryssow, Eylau, Friedland, etc. The monument seen from the balcony of the Tuileries has the names upon it, which we scarcely can suppose to have been inscribed for the sole purpose of filling space.
The friends of Poland believe that they serve the cause of progress by aiding in the reëstablishment of the Polish nation. We presume there are plenty of men in France who know that during the last thirty years Rossia has spread her dominion in Asia over twice the area of Germany and France together, that she is only eighty miles from Peking, and as far from India as Vienna is from the Black Sea. Moreover, Asiatic people, always dreaming of plunder in Europe, once armed with European Minié rifles and rifled cannon, may repeat anew the incursions of Attila, Tamerlane, Battu, etc. The end to be gained and the booty will create the temptation, and offer superior inducements.
The effort to palliate Rossian cruelty, skilful as it is, by the alleged necessities of war, by denials, or by asserting it to be mere revenge for similar atrocities committed by Poles, must be appreciated according to the sources whence it emanates. What the letter writer or similar twelve-hour visitors saw in Poland, particularly in Kracow, of people sharpening knives or preparing deadly poisons, need here be merely referred to by saying that in times of general confusion we have no means to foresee or to control personal revenge, and also that we will not here cite the reports of Polish papers or accounts of Germans. We will take our data from the Moscow Invalid, the czar's Universal Journal at Warsaw, and the Journal de Petersbourg. From these we find it stated that the number of men hanged in three hundred and sixty-five days of insurrection was eight hundred and fifty, besides many others whose names were not given because it was simpler and more profitable to ignore their origin, class, and religion.
From Kiow alone Anienkow sent away fourteen thousand men, chiefly of Greek or other non-Roman-Catholic religion, over whom the Catholic priest had neither control or influence. From Warsaw, every Saturday during fifty-two weeks, an average of four hundred men, women, and children were deported, all separated from their natural guides and protectors. From Liefland, north of the Dwina, were sent off, in one month, thirty-five hundred of the better educated and comfortable class of people. A Government paper rejoices that Polish and Catholic principles, growing there during five centuries, were in a fair way of extinction, since, as it itself admits, forty-five thousand men had been transferred to the governments of Samara, Orenburg, Kazan, and similar localities. To burn the villages of Ibanie, Szarki, Hrodki, Smoloy, Zabolocie, etc., to destroy the furniture, horses, cattle, and all other property, to send the inhabitants on foot, only allowing for the aged and young children a few small wagons, far away into a cold, strange, savage country, without tools, means, etc.—was all this done merely as a military necessity, and was it excusable, or, at most, merely blamable?
Now, certain correspondents and lecturers, with other gentlemen, deny the use of the lash or whip on the backs of women and ladies, because the American people cannot countenance such barbarism. To say the least of such a denial—it is gratuitous. Austria daily publishes similar judgments as the result of police court trials. In Rossia, they are not published, because the administration of lash, whip, and scourge is left to the paternal discretion of every sergeant, lieutenant, police commissary, and district constable, and is enjoyed by them to their hearts' content. It is the method employed for ages by Rossia, and considered as an indispensable appendage to patriarchal czarism and its lieutenants. We cannot wonder at such denials, for their authors have ordinarily been brought up under a better state of things, and never learned in their youth the possibility of resort to such practices: the less also can we wonder when we know that they met only similar denials in the higher Rossian society, and when we consider that such denials came from a source one is naturally inclined to respect, when the man denying seems respectable. How can we fancy a lie told by a gentleman in golden uniform, or a lady in a lace dress? But if the defenders of the civilization of Rossia and of the noble manners of its aristocracy knew all the cruel judgments of Rossian masters, the lewdness, recklessness, indecency, and shallowness often concealed beneath their artificial good breeding and apparent courtesy, they would learn that laces may cover coarse tissues, and gold hide corroded brass. The gaudy dress and uniform serve but to permit more daring deeds; the more they glitter, the more impunity they confer. Under every Government, and more especially under a despotism, subaltern officers may be sure of impunity to abuse, provided it is done under the guise of zeal and devotion.
During the past year we have heard and read in lectures, newspapers, correspondences, etc., many flattering statements of the beauty of the Rossian Government, and the czar's liberality—and as many accusations and imputations detrimental to the Polish cause. Why the same views were not held and advocated during the Crimean war we will not ask, but merely hint at. These statements come from organs whose purpose is readily divined. If we turn to the paper that has opened its columns to the Paris letter, we find close at hand the advertisement and recommendation of a programme for our own great country, and the pointing out of a new Garibaldi for the American Union. Now, neither said platform nor Garibaldi would be consistent with the condemnation, irony, and ridicule flung upon the champions for one thousand years of the growing progress, prosperity, and Christianity of Western Europe.
We of this generation are grown fixedly into our ancient habits of thought, and now can make no change; but our successors, perchance, may possibly be reduced to undersign the manifesto of Rossian Liberalism, published about a year ago in Moscow, and, in return for false promises and deceptions, consent to make common cause against Germany and the whole of Western Europe. What American liberties would gain by such an eventuality, is not for us, nor for to-day, to say.