Cologne, August 3. We have already often said that the Hansemann
Government extols the Bodelschwingh Ministry in every possible
way. After the recognition of the revolution follows the recognition
of the old-Prussian state of affairs. That’s the way of the world.”

That Herr Hansemann, however, would achieve such virtuosity
that he even praises those deeds of such gentlemen as Bodelschwingh,
Savigny and consorts which he used to combat with the greatest
vehemence in his days as Rhenish deputy to the Provincial Diet, that
is a triumph with which the Potsdam camarilla had certainly not

counted. And yet! Please read the following article of the latest
Preussische Staats-Anzeiger’:

Berlin, August 1. The most recent issue of the journal of the Ministry of Justice
reported in its “unofficial part” statistical observations about the death penalty as well
as a survey of death sentences passed and confirmed between the years 1826 and 1843
(inclusive) with the exception of sentences passed in the so-called demagogical
investigations. This work was undertaken with the utilisation of documents of the
Ministry of Justice and, because of the importance of the issue, should claim the
special attention of the reader in this respect. According to the survey, in the
aforementioned period of time:

1. In the Rhine Province 189 death sentences were passed, 6 confirmed
2. In the other provinces 237 ” # ig =" 94 ”

altogether 426 death sentences were passed, 100 confirmed,

of which, however, four were not carried out because of flight or death of the
criminals.

If the Bill on the new Penal Code of 1847 had been in force during that period
there would have been:

1. In the Rhine Province only 53 death sentences passed, 5 confirmed
2. In the other provinces
only 134 a . 7 76 %

altogether 187 death sentences passed, 81 confirmed,

provided that the same principles were applied to the confirmation as heretofore.
Thus, the death penalty would not have been imposed on 237 criminals who were

* See this volume, p. 274.— Ed.
Modified quotation from Goethe’s Faust, Erster Teil, “Garten” .— Ed.
© “Berlin, 1. August”, Preussischer Staats-Anzeiger No. 90, August 2, 1848.— Ed.

sentenced to death under the existing laws. Nor would the death penalty have been
carried out on 19 executed criminals.
According to the survey, there were annually on the average:

1. In the Rhine Province 10°%/ 1g death sentences passed and 6; ig confirmed
2. In the other provinces 13 6 = . 54/18

If, however, the Bill had been in force at the time, there would have been annually
on the average:

1. In the Rhine Pro-

vince only O71, death sentences passed and his confirmed
2. In the other pro- P
vinces only 7°/lig a - a is 4*/is ”

And now admire the mildness, the excellence and the glory of the
Royal Prussian Criminal Bill of 1847! Perhaps as much as one entire
death sentence less would have been carried out in the Rhine
Province in 18 years! What advantages!

But the innumerable defendants who would have been deprived
of a jury and sentenced and jailed by royal justices, the disgraceful
corporal punishments which here on the Rhine would have been
carried out with old-Prussian rods, here, where we freed ourselves
of the rod forty years ago; the dirty proceedings consequent upon
the crimes against morals, unknown to the Code, which would have
been conjured up again by the depraved haemorrhoidal imagination
of the knights of the Prussian Law; the most inexorable confusion of
juridical concepts, and finally the innumerable political trials
consequent upon the despotic and insidious regulations of that
contemptible patchwork, in a word, the Prussianising of the entire
Rhine Province; do the Rhenish renegades in Berlin really believe
that we would forget all this on the account of one fallen head?

It is clear: Herr Hansemann, through his agent in the judicial
branch, Herr Marker, wants to carry through that which was beyond
Bodelschwingh. He really wants now to bring into force the
thoroughly hated old-Prussian criminal Bill.

At the same time we learn that the jury system will only be
introduced in Berlin, and even there only on an experimental basis.

Thus: not the introduction of Rhenish law to the old-Prussians but
the introduction of old-Prussian law to the Rhinelanders is the great
result, the tremendous “achievement” of the March revolution! Rien
que ¢a."