The Daily Dispatch: December 3, 1861., [Electronic resource]

Sad condition of Poland.

"I have repeatedly mentioned the increasing severity and violence of the Russian authorities. Any corporal is master of the lives and properties of the inhabitants. Never during the most melancholy period of the reign of the Emperor Nicholas, and even after Warsaw was taken by assault in 1861, were similar excesses seen. The city presents the gloomy aspect of a necropolis. The churches, the theatres, the public gardens, and schools are closed. The courts of justice are reduced to silence. Arrests are made without distinction of age, sex, or quality. The most revered prelates and ecclesiastic, selected to make a report on the violence and profanations committed in the churches, have been carried away from their houses during the night and incarcerated. Several bankers and some of the most wealthy landed proprietors are in prison. Gen. Kornon, Governor of the Department of Plok, who distinguished himself above all Russian Generals for severity, and who lately commanded that three ladies of the best families in the town should be publicly flogged in front of the church of Plok, is now appointed President of the secret commission which is to conduct the prosecution against the prisoners in the citadel. These prisoners are treated with the utmost cruelty. They are locked up in narrow cells without light, and are permitted to walk for only five minutes during the day in a small court.