his last conclusion of our correspondent leads us to
suspect that he may perchance never have been in Poland--perhaps never
even in Paris--since this _non-sending_ forth of seven thousand
Parisians was better understood by every _gamin du faubourg_ than
apparently by the _sincere_ narrator of 'Tardy Truths.'

The writer says further, that he expected to find in Kracow 'activity
and infinite means.' Now, the author and the confidence of the Poles
must have been quite strangers to one another, or his imagination must
have misled him farther than was becoming in a man of knowledge and
reflection. He does not mention the date of his journey, but we know
about the period referred to. It is true that at that time Kracow had
not yet been declared in a state of siege by M. Pouilly de Mensdorf,
but, as a personal friend of the Czar, he had then held Galicia and
Kracow during the past year under a more uncertain condition than even
the declaration of a state of siege would have produced. Twenty thousand
chosen officers and soldiers, with discretionary and greatly enlarged
powers, and almost as many policemen and spies, with early fed and
increasing covetousness for rewards, promotions, and orders, kept
constant watch over the ancient capital of Poland, the last remnant of
Polish nationality which had been engulfed in the European peace of
1846.

We may then safely assert that our author has given us sketches from his
whims and fancies, rather than the mature results of his judgment, and
that he has also neglected to direct his researches into the history of
the past. It is doubtless true that he was not desired as a volunteer,
and that he found danger only, and not fortune, which, indeed, we think
his own sagacity might have taught him from the first.

We would be forced to doubt that any one understood the policy of the
Polish Committee in Warsaw who should apply the epithet 'mercenary' to
the Polish soldiers. We would not ask our author how much he gave per
diem to those under his own command: we have no wish to rival the wit of
a Russian proclamation which appeared last winter in Warsaw, in which
the Poles in general, including those who fought at Orsza, Wielikie
Luki, Kirchholm, Chocim, Smolensk, Vienna, Zurich, Hohenlinden,
Samocierros, Pultusk, Grochow, Iganie, Zyzyny, Opatow, etc., etc., were
stigmatized as poltroons and cowards!

It is certainly true that the battles of late have not represented a
file of twenty thous