A recent attempt at assassination has enabled the Russian Government
to treat Warsaw with still greater severity. On the 19th inst., as General Berg was passing near the Zamoyski Palace, explosive shells were dropped into his carriage. The bombs injured two Cossacks and the horses, and General Berg immediately let the soldiery loose. They entered the Zamoyski Palace, and the next house, an immense edifice, occupied by some five hundred families; and, says a writer for whose means of information we can vouch, " what were tho scenes that were enacted in these, perhaps the most respectable houses in Warsaw, between five in the afternoon and twelve at night, God only knows! The crowd outside saw the windows all smashed, and the furniture, books, pictures, mirrors, pianos, dresses, and cupboards thrown out into the street ; and they heard, in the midst of the yells of the savage soldiery, the noise of the breaking of furniture, and the despairing cries and groansof women." The houseswere completely gutted, all the male residents, 200 in number, were forced through the streets at the point of the bayonet, and thrown into the citadel, and then the buildings were fired, and speedily burnt to the ground. The plunder was taken away to bo divided among the soldiers, and then General Berg decreed that the sites of the palaces should be covered with barracks, and informed the municipality that the pillage had his full approval, and lie would do the same to every house in which a shot was fired. It is thus that empires are lost. Military rulers are not expected to show much lenity when fired at with explosive shells, but still less are they expected to dis- play the babyish ferocity which breaks the chair in pieces because it has stumbled over it.
