Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/625

 . 21, 1863.] when compelled to do so by sheer force of arms, the feeling of the community would not support the act. The decrees issued by the National Government forbidding payment of taxes under compulsion, and prohibiting manual labour in the employment of the Russian government, were never carried into execution, and have had to be dropped silently. The fact is, as I take it, that all terrorism breaks down before the tacit resistance of the multitude. The “Sed periit postquam cerdonibus esse timendus cœperat” is true of all reigns of terror, and so, when the National Government tried to interfere with the daily life of petty shopkeepers and workmen, it found that there was a limit to its power.

No doubt this theory, if correct, pre-supposes an almost incredible unanimity of public sentiment; but then I do believe the Poles to be unanimous to an incredible degree in their dislike to the Russians. The hatred of the Spaniard for the French, or of the Italian for the Tedeschi, scarcely I suspect, approached in intensity that of the Pole for the Muscovite. It is this universality of hate which constitutes the strength of the Polish Committee of Public Safety. The impression appears to be that, if the names of this body were known, they are not such as to command any great weight or influence in the country. It is known, too, that many of their acts are bitterly disapproved of and condemned by the more educated and wealthy Poles. Yet the authority of this clique of unknown men, who are supposed to be petty lawyers and needy professional men, is acquiesced in readily by the proudest of the Polish aristocracy. There are many and obvious advantages in the fact, that the members of this body should not be men of family and eminence. Such men carry their lives in their hands, as I believe pretty well every educated Pole would do readily at the present hour; but they carry no one else’s. If a Czartoriski or a Zamoiski were found guilty of belonging to this mysterious conclave, the whole of his fortunes and his family would be involved in his ruin. If some Polish Smith or Brown is arrested, he is killed with more or less of cruelty, and there the matter ends. Moreover, the Polish nobles reckon confidently that they can always keep this Vigilance Committee within due bounds, from the fact that they provide the money for its expenses, and that, in case of need, they could stop the supplies. I am not sure whether this calculation is a sound one, or whether the Polish nobles might not find they had created a power too strong for them to curb or suppress. But the belief is entertained and acted upon pretty generally.

However, be the case what it may, the fact is certain, that the National Government has maintained itself for months at Warsaw without detection; that its authority over the Poles is recognised readily, and that the names of its component members are utterly unknown. A foreign friend of mine, resident at the Polish capital, told me that the nearest approach he ever had to direct communication with the National authorities, was after this wise:—One morning at a very early hour, he received a visit from a Polish nobleman, whose name was unknown to him. On being introduced, his visitor apologised repeatedly for intruding upon him at such an inconvenient time, but pleaded absolute necessity as an excuse. He stated that he had arrived late the previous evening at Warsaw, and that he was obliged to continue his journey the same morning. He declared that he knew nobody in the city, but that since his arrival he had received orders to deliver a letter to my friend in person. After professing complete ignorance of the contents of this missive, the mysterious messenger took his departure, and was seen no more. The letter, on being opened, proved to be a communication from the National Government, cautioning my informant against talking freely in the presence of his servants, as they were spies in the pay of the Russian police. The power of the National Government is not confined to Russian Poland. Two or three days before I passed through Cracow, there was a Polish gentleman—an Austrian subject—stopping at the Hotel de Saxe, where, like most travellers, I took up my quarters. This gentleman shortly before had declined to pay a forced loan levied upon him by order of the National Government at Warsaw. In the middle of the day, in the centre of a crowded and busy hotel, four agents of this hidden body entered this gentleman’s room and began belabouring him with sticks. The Pole happened to be a resolute man, and with the aid of his water-jug, offered so sturdy a resistance, that his assailants took to flight. Any attempt however to discover the men who had committed the outrage failed utterly; they were shielded by the sympathy of the population, and no single one of the scores of persons about the hotel who must have known their names could be forced to reveal them.

If you ask a Pole how he can justify such acts of tyranny as these, he does not attempt to do so; but he tells you that, after all, the National Government, whatever its faults may be, is a native Polish one, not a Russian; and that he must support his own people against foreigners; and this policy explains the power of this modern Wehmgericht. E. D.

 evil of the sea! fair-wingèd girls Who dwell by Scylla’s wide insatiate maw, Or where Charybdis foaming ever curls His shining waters, mortal never saw Terrors more pleasing, ne’er heard sweeter swell Of music than from out your rocky cell.

Though the wind urge the doomèd ship away, Though favouring breezes fill her bellying sails, Still can one sweet low voice the vessel stay, One loving whisper calm the boisterous gales. Ah me! for all her crew, who homeward bound Still love to linger on that silvery sound.

All unaware, with pleasure to their death They pass, lull’d ever by that dulcet band, Till the song changes to a fitful breath, Rustling through bones which whiten on the sand; But the next ship which sails that sunny sea Hears only the sweet Sirens’ melody.