_May 16th._--This afternoon Bucher, under instructions from the Chief, handed me the following sketch for an article which was to be dated from Vienna: “I do not know whether the little flirtations of the authorities here with the Poles have been noticed abroad. The summons to the recalcitrant Galician members calling upon them to appear in the Reichstag within fourteen days under pain of losing their seats, was sent so late that the interval covered the marriage festivities, and these gentlemen were able to take part in them as members of Parliament. On the 21st of April, the day on which they were declared to have lost their seats, the Emperor nominated Dr. Ziemialkowski, the Burgomaster of Lemberg, whose revolutionary past is well known, as Minister without a portfolio, and in the Speech from the Throne referred to this appointment as evidence of his constant consideration for Galicia. Shortly before this the Archbishop of Lemberg and the Bishops of Tarnau and Przemysl thought good to send an address to the ‘Primate,’ Count Ledochowski. It will be remembered that at the time when Poland was still a kingdom the Primate sometimes acted as Interrex. The ceremony of inauguration of the Cracow Academy, which was founded by the Hohenwart Ministry, took place on the 7th of May, and was attended by the Archduke Karl Ludwig, the Patron of the Institution. The festivities and speeches on this occasion were of such a demonstrative character that the local journals, notwithstanding the full reports which they published, omitted a number of exceptionally piquant details, particularly in a speech of the new Minister Ziemialkowski. We may perhaps form some idea of that speech from the following passage in an election address which he delivered in 1870: ‘Very soon,’ he said, ‘the civilisation of Europe must measure swords with Asiatic barbarism. From this struggle Poland will arise once more like the Phœnix from its ashes. It is true, indeed, that in the present formation of Europe Poland, with a population of sixteen millions, situated between the German Empire with forty millions and Russia with sixty millions, could not maintain herself alone. She therefore must unite with Hungary and Austria and form a federation which would justify us in claiming that it had its origin in a political necessity.’ In Polish affairs one is thoroughly accustomed to these castles in the air, but it would really seem as if Prussia and Germany ought to keep a sharp look-out.”