* Cologne, February 10. We promised yesterday to return to Lassalle.  
Nr. 219, February 11, 1849  
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.

Lassalle has now been sitting in Düsseldorf prison for 11 weeks already, and only now has the examination of simple, by no means denied facts been concluded; only now does the examining chamber decide. It has been skilfully contrived that the examining chamber and the indictment chamber, by merely observing the maximum legal term, can drag the matter beyond the forthcoming Düsseldorf assizes and present the prisoner with a further three months’ detention on remand.

And what detention on remand!

It is known that a deputation from the various democratic associations of Cologne recently presented to the Procurator-General Nicolovius an address signed by several thousand citizens, in which 1) the speeding up of the investigation against the Düsseldorf political prisoners, and 2) decent treatment of the same during detention on remand were requested. Mr Nicolovius promised these reasonable demands the utmost consideration.

But how little heed is paid in Düsseldorf prison to Mr Procurator-General, to the laws and to the most common decencies, the following example shows:

On 5 January a prison warder took the liberty of some brutalities against Lassalle and crowned this by going to the director and accusing Lassalle of having brutalised him.

An hour later the director, accompanied by the examining magistrate, enters Lassalle’s room without greeting him and takes him to task for this. Lassalle interrupts him with the remark that among educated people it is customary to greet someone when entering his room, and that he is entitled to require this courtesy from the director.

This was too much for Mr Director. Furious, he advances on Lassalle, forces him back against the window and shouts at the top of his voice, accompanying himself with gesticulations of all his limbs: ‘Listen, you are my prisoner here and nothing more; you are to comply with the prison regulations, and if that does not suit you, I shall have you thrown into the lock-up, and worse can happen to you!’

Whereupon Lassalle likewise became heated and declared to the director: he had no right to punish him under the prison regulations, since he was a prisoner on remand; loud shouting was of no use and proved nothing; even though this building was a prison, this was his room, and when the director (pointing with his finger) came in to him here, he had to greet him.

Now the director lost all control. He pressed close up to Lassalle, drew his outstretched arm far back, and shouted: ‘Do not gesticulate with your finger, or I will strike you in the face with my own hand this instant, so that...’

Lassalle immediately called upon the examining magistrate as a witness to this outrageous ill-treatment and placed himself under his protection. The examining magistrate now tried to pacify the director, but succeeded only after repeatedly renewed offers of boxes on the ears.

After this edifying scene, Lassalle applied to the public prosecutor v. Ammon with the request [that an investigation] be initiated against the director, Mr Morret. For the director’s acts of violence constitute not only ill-treatment and a gross insult, but also an excess of his official authority.

Mr v. Ammon replied that investigations into excesses of authority on the part of prison officials could not be initiated without prior authorisation from the administrative authority, and referred Lassalle to the government. In doing so he relied on some old cabinet order of 1844.

Article 95 of the imposed so-called constitution declares: ‘No prior authorisation of the authorities is required in order to bring public civil or military officials to court for violations of the law committed through excess of their official authority.’ Article 108 of the same charter expressly repeals all laws contradictory to it. But in vain did Lassalle invoke Article 95 before the public prosecutor; Mr v. Ammon insisted on his conflict of competence and dismissed him with the pleasant remark: ‘You seem to forget that you are a prisoner on remand!’

Were we not right to say that the so-called constitution had been imposed only against us, and not against the gentlemen officials?

So offers of boxes on the ears, the lock-up and corporal punishment—for that was the ‘worse’ that Mr Morret held in reserve—that is the ‘decent treatment’ that was promised to the deputation for the political prisoners!

In passing we note that by law the prisons for pre-trial detention are to be completely separated from the prisons for punishment, and the prisoners in the former are to be subject to a quite different regime from that of convicts. In Düsseldorf, however, there exists no special pre-trial detention prison, and the prisoners on remand, after being unlawfully locked up in the prison for punishment, are additionally placed under the convicts’ prison regulations, can be thrown into the lock-up and treated with cudgellings!

In order that this praiseworthy aim be achieved with Lassalle, the said Morret has convened a disciplinary commission, which is to make Mr Lassalle a participant in the above-mentioned amenities. And the gentlemen examining magistrates and prosecutors seem to allow all this to pass quietly, or entrench themselves behind a conflict of competence!

Lassalle has turned to the Procurator-General. For our part, we are publishing the whole affair so that public opinion may support the prisoner’s complaint.

We hear, by the way, that Lassalle has at last been released from solitary confinement and is at least locked up in the same prison together with Cantador.