2 JULY 1881, Page 2

Lord Coleridge on Monday sentenced Herr Most, the editor of

the Freiheit, to sixteen months' imprisonment with hard labour, for his articles inciting to assassination. The sentence is de- nounced as severe, and it is severe; but if the victim theatened had been Mr. Gladstone, and not a King, the judgment would not have struck the English people as harsh. And there is nothing in kingship to make it a moral offence. The worst effect of the sentence is that it will be everlastingly quoted on the Conti- nent as apology for cruel sentences on Socialists, for purely speculative " rebellions " against the existing order of the world.