Cologne, July 6. We have just received the following rejoinder to 
the article printed in yesterday’s [Neue] Rheinische Zeitung dated 
“Cologne, July 4” which dealt with the arrest of Dr. Gottschalk and 
Anneke.” 

“T declare it to be a falsehood that I answered the complaint of Frau Anneke 
concerning the arrest of her husband without the presence of a member of the 
municipal authorities in the following manner: 

“I have given no orders to commit brutalities.’ 

“Rather, I merely remarked that I should regret it if the police had conducted 
themselves in an unseemly manner. 

“Y furthermore declare it to be a falsehood to state that I used the expression: 

““The police were judicially commanded to proceed with the arrest.’ 

“I merely observed that the arrest was effected by virtue of a warrant to appear in 
court issued by the Examining Magistrate. 

“Under the law, such warrants are discharged by court bailiffs or agents of the 
armed forces. The presence of an official of the court police is nowhere prescribed. 

“The defamations and insults contained in this article, directed against Chief 
Public Prosecutor Zweiffel and the police who carried out the arrest, will be 
evaluated in the legal proceedings which will be initiated on this count. 

Cologne, July 5, 1848 
Hecker, Public Prosecutor” 

Our esteemed readers may perceive from the preceding that the 
Neue Rheinische Zeitung has gained a new contributor of great 
promise—the Public Prosecutor’s office. 

We have erred on a single point of law. During an arrest there is no 
need for an “official of the court police’ but merely for an agent of the 

* See this volume, pp. 177-79.— Ed. 

Legal Proceedings against the Neue Rheinische Zeitung 187 

public authority. With what careful guarantees the Code assures the 
safety of the person! 

Incidentally, the fact that the police did not produce their warrant 
remains illegal. It also remains illegal that they, as we are 
subsequently informed, scrutinised documents even before the appear- 
ance of Herr Hecker and his companion. But above all the brutalities, 
which Herr Hecker regretted, remain illegal. We are amazed to see 
court proceedings pending not against the police but against the 
newspaper that has denounced their impropriety. 

The insult could only refer to one of the policemen of whom it was 
said that he “was unsteady” at an early hour for more or less spiritual 
or spirituous reasons. If the investigation, however, as we do not 
doubt for one moment, should prove the correctness of the evidence, 
namely the brutalities committed by the agents of the public 
authority, then we believe that we shall have only acted in the 
interests of the gentlemen accused by us by carefully emphasising, 
with the complete impartiality becoming the press, the only 
“extenuating circumstance”. And this affable statement of the only 
extenuating circumstance is transformed into an “insult” by the 
Public Prosecutor. 

And now as to the insult or defamation of Chief Public Prosecutor 
Zweiffell 

We have simply reported, and as we have ourselves indicated in 
the report, we have reported rumours, rumours which reached us 
from a reliable source. The press not only has the right but the duty 
to keep a close watch on the conduct of the people’s representatives. 
At the same time we pointed out that Herr Zweiffel’s past 
parliamentary activity seems to be in line with the anti-popular 
remarks ascribed to him. Is it really the intention to deprive the press 
of the right to judge the parliamentary activity of a representative of 
the people? What then is the purpose of the press? 

Or does not the press have the right to detect in the people’s 
representative Zweiffel too much of the Chief Public Prosecutor and 
in the Chief Public Prosecutor too much of the people’s representa- 
tive? Why then in Belgium, France etc. the debate on incom- 
patibilities? 

As to the constitutional usage, one should read again how the 
Constitutionnel, the Siécle and the Presse during the reign of Louis 
Philippe judged the parliamentary activity of Hébert, Plougoulm etc. 
at the time when these men occupied the highest positions in the 
Public Prosecutor’s office and at the same time served as deputies. 
One should read how the Belgian newspapers, particularly the 
strictly constitutional ones such as the Observateur, the Politique and 

the Emancipation, barely a year ago judged the parliamentary activity 
of M. Bavay when he combined in one person the office of deputy 
and Public Prosecutor-General. 

And what was always allowed under the Guizot Ministry and the 
Rogier Ministry should not be allowed under a monarchy built on the 
broadest democratic foundation? A right which was not contested by any 
Administration of the French Restoration becomes a wrong under 
the Government of Action which recognises the revolution in principle? 

Incidentally, the public has been able to convince itself from our 
special supplement of this morning just how correctly we have 
judged the course of events. Rodbertus has left the Government and 
Ladenberg has entered it. The Government of the Left Centre has 
transformed itself in a few days into a decidedly old-Prussian reactionary 
Government. The Right has dared a coup d’état,“” and the Left has 
withdrawn with the threats. 

And is it not palpably clear that the most recent acts in Cologne 
were part of the great plan of campaign of the Government of Action? 

Just now we are being informed that the Neue Rheinische Zeitung 
has been banned from the house of detention. Do the prison rules 
provide for such a prohibition? Or are the politically accused 
condemned to the penalty of having to read exclusively the Kélnische 
Zeitung?