"Neue Rheinische Zeitung" – [Three State Trials against the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung"]

[Three State Trials against the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung"]

["Neue Rheinische Zeitung" No. 153, November 26, 1848, Second Edition]

*
Cologne
, November 24. At this moment three state trials are pending against the
"Neue Rheinische Zeitung"
— we do not count the judicial prosecutions of
Engels
,
Dronke
,
Wolff and Marx
for alleged "unnewspaperly" political offences. It is assured from a well-informed source that at least a dozen more inquisitions against the
"scandal sheet"
— official expression of the ci-devant-procurator <former procurator> and actual chief public prosecutor
Hecker
(c'est du Hecker tout pur) <(that is Hecker unadulterated)> — have been initiated.

First Crime. Violent assault on the virginal "delicacy" of six R[oya]l Prussian gendarmes and of the king of the Cologne parquet, Herr Chief Public Prosecutor
Zweiffel
<See Volume 5, pp. 166-168>

– representative of the people in partibus infidelium, for the time being sits neither in Berlin nor in Brandenburg, but in
Cologne
on the Rhine. Am Rhein! am Rhein! da wachsen unsre Reben! We too prefer the Rhine to the Spree and the Hotel Disch to the Hotel Mielentz.

Va pour la délicatesse des gens d'armes! <So much for the delicacy of the gendarmes!> As for the "delicacy" of Herr
Zweiffel
, for us it is a "non me tangere!" <"touch-me-not!"> We were morally outraged by those indelicate votes of no confidence by which his electors are said to have induced him to withdraw. As true guardians of honour of the virginal "delicacy" of Herr
Zweiffel
we request him publicly
to reject
the declaration of Herr
Weinhagen
of Cleves. Herr
Weinhagen
declares in the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" over his own signature, that he has "to communicate facts injurious to the honour and delicacy of Herr Zweiffel. He
could prove
these facts himself, but must refrain from their publication so long as Herr Zweiffel takes refuge in that paragraph of the Code pénal according to which any denunciation, even the most well-founded, is prosecuted as
defamation
if it cannot be proved by judicial sentence or authentic documents." We appeal therefore to the "honour and delicacy" of Herr
Zweiffel
!

Second Crime. The simple Hecker and the divided Hecker <See Volume 5, pp. 440-444>.

Third Crime. This crime, which occurred in the year 1848, is prosecuted at the instance of the
Reich Ministry
. The
crime of Schnapphahnski
! The
feuilleton as criminal
!

The Reich Ministry is said to have acknowledged in its bill of indictment that the
"Neue Rheinische Zeitung"
is the worst newspaper in the "bad press." We for our part declare the Reich authority to be the comicalest authority of all comical authorities.