ooty received from the inhabitants as the price of
exemption from the oppressive quartering of troops on their houses.
Spies were employed by the police to watch every man of the least
consequence in society, and the nobility were often driven to the
country to avoid such dangerous intruders. In several instances
members of the diet were banished to their estates, and made to pay
the troops that guarded them, for having ventured in the assembly,
whose discussions ought to have been free, to express a suspicion of
the government, or to hint an opinion contrary to the taste of the
grand duke.

"The following statement of facts on this head, to which we have seen no
allusion made in the public prints, but the authenticity of which may be
relied on, will give a better idea of the system of Russian government
in Poland than any general description could convey. We have received it
from the quarter to which we have above alluded:--

"According to the laws of Poland, a commission, chosen by the citizens,
has the right of examining and auditing the accounts of the town. From
the tyrannical system adopted by the officers who were continually about
the person of the grand duke, they dared not perform their duty from
fear of his displeasure, and probably, at the instigation of the
miscreants around him, being consigned to a prison; remonstrances were,
however, generally made at the half-yearly meeting of the commission;
though, up to the period immediately before the revolution, nothing was
done to check the evil. In the month of September a circumstance
occurred, not important in itself, but of great weight in the future
course of events. _Janiszewski_, a cidevant officer in the army,
had sent several petitions to the president of the town, which were
treated with neglect and insult. He and the president met in the street,
when the latter again insulted him. This was immediately resented by the
former, who inflicted severe corporal chastisement on the latter. The
grand duke refused to interfere in the affair. A trial ensued, in which
some abuses of the president were exposed, and _Janiszewski_
sentenced only to forty days' imprisonment. This affair, and this
decision, created a strong sensation at the time; and emboldened the
commission appointed to investigate the affairs of the town-house to
insist on their rights. The commission, being at length roused by the
numerous abuses that were pressed on their attention, obtained an o