Cologne, July 10. Yesterday eleven compositors of our newspaper as 
well as Herr Clouth were summoned to appear as witnesses before 
the examining magistrate on Tuesday, July 11. It is still a question of 
finding the author of the incriminatory article.* We recall that at the 

_time of the old Rheinische Zeitung, the time of the censorship and the 
Arnim Government, when they tried to find out who had sent in the 
famous “Marriage Bill”,’”’ there were neither house searches nor 
were examinations of compositors and the printshop owner resorted 
to. In the meantime, of course, we have experienced a 
revolution which had the misfortune to be recognised by Herr 
Hansemann. 

We have to revert once again to the July 5 “rejoinder” of Public 
Prosecutor Hecker.” 

In this rejoinder Herr Hecker accuses us of lying with respect to 
one or another remark which, we ascribed to him. Perhaps we have 
now the means at our disposal to correct the correction, but who will 
vouch that during this unequal battle. we will not once again be 
answered with Paragraph 222 or Paragraph 367 of the Penal Code? 

Herr Heckers rejoinder ends with the following words: 

“The defamations and insults contained in this article” (dated Cologne, July 4), 

“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.” 

Evaluation! Have the black-red-gold colours been “evaluated” in the 
“legal proceedings” which were initiated by the Kamptz Govern- 
ment?!*? 

Let us consult the Penal Code.'** Paragraph 367 reads: 

“Whosoever at public places ... or in an authentic and public document, or in a 
printed or unprinted piece of writing which has been posted, sold or distributed, 
accuses someone of facts which, if they were true,” could result in the prosecution of the 
accused in a criminal or police court, or merely expose him to the contempt and 
hatred of his fellow citizens, is guilty of the offence of defamation.” 

Paragraph 370: “If the fact which forms the subject of the accusation should, 
after due process of law, prove to be true, then the originator of the accusation shall go 
free of all punishment. Only proof which is derived from a verdict or some other 
authentic document is regarded as legal.” 

In order to elucidate this paragraph we shall still add Paragraph 
368: : 

“Consequently it will be of no avail to the originator of the accusation to plead in his 
defence that he will undertake to provide proof, nor can he enter the plea that the documents 

or the facts are notorious or that the accusations which gave rise to the prosecution were 
copied or extracted from foreign papers or other printed matter.” 

The imperial era with all its crafty despotism radiates from these 
paragraphs. 

According to ordinary human understanding, somebody is defamed 
if he is charged with fictitious evidence. According to the extraordina- 
ry understanding of the Penal Code, however, he is defamed if he is 
charged with real facts that can be proved but not in an exceptional 
manner, not by a verdict or by an official document. Oh for the 
miraculous power of verdicts and official documents! Only facts 
which have been judged in court, only officially documented facts are true 
and genuine facts. Has there ever been a penal code which has more 
maliciously defamed the most ordinary common sense? Has any 
bureaucracy ever thrown up a similar Chinese Wall between itself 
and the public? Covered with the shield of this paragraph, officials 
and deputies are immune like constitutional kings. These gentlemen 
may commit as many facts as they deem proper “which will expose 
them to the hatred and contempt of their fellow citizens”, but these 
facts must not be pronounced, written or printed on penalty of loss 
of civil rights in addition to the inevitable prison sentence and fine. 
Long live the freedom of the press and free speech moderated by 
Paragraphs 367, 368 and 370! You are arrested illegally. The press 
denounces this illegality. Result: the denunciation is “evaluated” in 
“legal proceedings” because of the “defamation” of the venerable 
official who has committed the illegality, unless a miracle occurs and 
a verdict has already been rendered yesterday about the illegality 
which he commits today. 

No wonder that the Rhenish jurists, among them the people’s 
representative Zweiffel, voted against a Polish commission with absolute 
authority! From their point of view, the Poles ought to have been 
sentenced to loss of their civil rights and also mandatory imprison- 
ment and fine because of their “defamation” of Colomb, Steinacker, 
Hirschfeld, Schleinitz, the Pomeranian army reserve and the 
old-Prussian police. Thus this peculiar pacification of Posen would 
be most gloriously crowned. 

And what a contradiction it is to use these paragraphs of the Penal 
Code in order to label the rumour of the threat of getting rid of 
‘March 19, the clubs and freedom of the press” a “defamation”!* As 
if the use of Paragraphs 367, 368 and 370 of the Penal Code against 
political speeches and writings were not the real definitive destruc- 
tion of March 19, clubs and freedom of the press! What is a club 
without freedom of speech? And what is freedom of speech with 
Paragraphs 367, 368 and 370 of the Penal Code? And what is March 
19 without clubs and freedom of speech? The suppression of 
freedom of speech and the press in deed: is there a more striking 
proof that only defamation could tell fables about the intention of this 
deed? Beware of signing the address which was drawn up yesterday 
at the Gürzenich Hall.'°* The Public Prosecutor’s office would 
“appreciate” your address by initiating “legal proceedings’ on the 
count of the “‘defamation” of Hansemann and Auerswald. Or may only 
Ministers be defamed with impunity, defamed in the sense of the 
French Penal Code, that code of political slavery carved in such a 
pithy style? Do we have responsible Ministers and irresponsible 
policemen? 

Thus it is not that the incriminatory article can be evaluated by the 
use of the paragraphs on “defamation in a juridical sense’, a 
defamation in the sense of despotic fiction which is an outrage to 
common sense. All that can thereby be evaluated are purely and 
simply the accomplishments of the March revolution, that is the 
height reached by the counter-revolution and the recklessness with 
which the bureaucracy may revive and enforce weapons still to be 
found in the arsenal of the old legislation against the new political 
life. This use of the calumny paragraphs in attacks upon the people’s 
representatives is a marvellous method of shielding these gentlemen 
from criticism and of depriving the press of the protection of the 
jury system. 

Let us now pass from the charge of defamation to the charge of 
insult. Here Paragraph 222 is applicable; it reads as follows: 

“If one or more officials from the administrative or judicial authorities during the 
exercise of their official duties or as a result of these duties suffer any verbalinsults which aim 
at an attack upon their honour or delicacy of feeling, the person who insults them in 
this way shall be punished with imprisonment of from one month to two years.” 

When the article appeared in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Herr 
Zwerffel was acting as people’s representative in Berlin and by no means 
as an official of the judicial authorities in Cologne. It was indeed 
impossible to insult him in the exercise of his official duties or as a 
result of these duties since he was not performing any official duties. 
The honour and delicacy of feeling of the gentlemen of the police, 
however, could only then come under the protection of this article if 
they had been insulted in words (par parole). We have written, 
however, and not spoken, and par écrit is not par parole. Thus, what is 
there left to do? The moral is to speak with more circumspection of 
the lowest of policemen than of the foremost of princes and in 
particular not to take liberties with the most irritable gentlemen of 
the Public Prosecutor’s office. We remind the public once more that 
similar prosecutions have been started simultaneously in different 
places such as Cologne, Dusseldorf and Koblenz. What a strange 
method of coincidence!