The Freiheit, a small German journal in London, with a.
circulation, it is said, of 300, recently published an article exulting ferociously in the assassination of the Czar, and recommending a similar deed every month, and hoping that the " throw was not the last." Attention was very foolishly called to this wicked declamation, and the Home Secretary ordered the arrest and prosecution of the editor, Herr Most, and the seizure of his paper. He was accord- ingly committed for trial on Thursday at Bow Street, on charges of " malicious libel" on Alexander II., and of inciting to murder. As we have said elsewhere, we do not believe a prosecution of the kind either helps to protect the sovereigns threatened, or stops the circulation of incen- diary counsels ; but there is another side of the matter, on which Sir W. Harcourt is probably in the right. Incitement to murder is a crime, if there is one, and a crime which, in the general break-down of the older and better ideas, tends to increase, and a Government cannot tolerate crime once brought to its notice, without raising an impression that it regards it as of slight importance. We are entirely opposed to the prosecu- tion of newspapers for attacking any system of government, however violent they may be ; but a man's life, even if be has the misfortune to be an Emperor, and a system of Government are two totally different things. A journalist might denounce paper currency as devilish, if he pleased; but if he advised forgery of the currency, ho would be guilty of incit- ing to crime. Whether Herr Most intended to incite to murder is, of course, a question for the jury.
