Karl Marx
Three State Prosecutions against the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung*
* Cologne, 24 November. At this moment, three state prosecutions are No. 153, 26 November 1848.
Second Edition
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
pending against the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung* – we are not counting the judicial
proceedings against Engels, Dronke, Wolff and Marx on account of
alleged “un-newspaper-like” political offences. – We are
assured from a well-informed source that at least a do-5
zen more inquisitions against the “scandal sheet” – official expression
of the ci-devant-procurator and actual chief procurator Hecker (c’est
du Hecker tout pur) – have been instituted.
First crime: Violent assault on the virginal “del-
icacy” of six royal Prussian gendarmes and of the king of the
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Cologne parquet, Chief Procurator Zweiffel – people’s represen-
tative in partibus infidelium, who sits for the time being neither in Berlin nor in
Brandenburg, but in Cologne on the Rhine. On the Rhine! on the Rhine! there
grow our vines! We too prefer the Rhine to the Spree and the
Hotel Disch to the Hotel Mielentz.
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Va pour la délicatesse des gensd’armes! As regards the “delicacy” of Mr.
Zweiffel, for us it is a “noli me tangere!” We were
morally indignant at those indelicate votes of no confidence by means of which his
electors are supposed to have induced him to withdraw. As true guard-
ians of the virginal “delicacy” of Mr. Zweiffel, we request20
him publicly to repudiate the declaration of Mr. Weinhagen of Cleve.
Mr. Weinhagen declares in the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung* over
his own signature that he has facts to communicate that are injurious to the “honour and delicacy” of Mr.
Zweiffel. He could even prove these facts,
but would have to refrain from publishing them as long
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as Mr. Zweiffel takes refuge in that paragraph of the Code pénal
by which every denunciation, even the most well-founded, is prosecuted as slander
if it cannot be proved by judicial verdict or authentic

Karl Marx
documents. We appeal, therefore, to the “honour and
delicacy” of Mr. Zweiffel!
Second crime. The simple Hecker and the twofold Hecker.
Third crime. This crime, which occurred in the year 1848,
is being prosecuted at the request of the Imperial Ministry. The cri- 5
me of Schnapphahnski! The feuilleton as criminal!
The Imperial Ministry is said, in its bill of indictment, to have recognised the *Neue Rhei-
nische Zeitung* as the worst newspaper in the “bad press.”
We, for our part, declare the Imperial authority to be the com-
icest authority of all comic authorities. 10