PRUSSIAN' JUSTICE.
A =wen incident is often a crucial test of the value of national institutions. The amount of political liberty enjoyed by English- men is pretty freely exemplified in the working of our police machinery, and the records of our courts of law. The writ of habeas corpus and the action for false imprisonment, and the im- partiality of our judges and magistrates, a consequence of the general spirit of fairness in dealing with accused persons, are our safeguards against the abuse of the law by evil-minded men to perpetrate a wrong. Public opinion exacts impartiality on the bench, and even imposes some restriction on the facile tongues of advocates, especially if they be on the side of the crown, and the impartiality of the bench reacts upon the public mind, so that they thus reciprocally keep each other up to a high standard. But that does not seem to be the case in all countries ; nay, not even -in countries ostensibly in the enjoyment of free institutions secured by the administration of fixed laws. A case in point has recently occurred at Boma in Prussia, and it certainly shows that the strong spirit of a bureaucratic despotism has not yet been cast out by a freer and more wholesome system of administering the law.
An English gentleman, formerly a captain in the Army and now in the Queen's household, accompanied by his wife, his child, and a nurse, was travelling from Mayence to Cologne. At Bonn, the -husband, nurse, and child, got out of the carriage, to obtain refreshment for the child, leaving the mother in charge and occu- pying their seats with some travelling conveniences. Two ladies entered and took two vacant seats. Then came a Dr. Parow and his wife, and, disregarding the marks of possession, sat down where they had no right to sit. The gentleman and his charge returned, but Parow, instead of relinquishing the seats, insulted their rightful tenants. The conductor was appealed to, and the inspector came upon the scene. This inspector must be of the Turkish order, for, summarily deciding, without a word of in- quiry, that the claimant wins wrong, he called his men and flung our countryman and his child on to the platform. The wife and nurse sprang out, but the train moved off with their luggage. So far the orthopaedist Parow and the cadi-like inspector had dis- played nothing. but a combination of rudeness, violence, and wrong. Their conduct, however, was mildness itself compared with what followed. First, the eadi-inspector of the Bonn rail- way station demanded a fine of ten thalers from the man he had helped to injure. As this demand was refused, our countryman was dragged to prison. His friends summoned our Consul from Co- logne, and this gentleman offered to become bail for the injured captive. It is hardly credible, but it is a fact, that the magistrate, who is officially called Staats Procurator, one Moller, peremptorily refused to accept it. Moreover, the captive was kept twenty-four hours without food, was only allowed to see his friends in the pre- sence of the gaoler, was refused a bed, and was confined just like a malefactor. For six days, in defiance of what is described as the law in Rhenish Prussia, he was kept in prison ; when at length he was brought.up for trial, we should like to see the bill of indictment, he was not allowed to call his relatives as witnesses, and ho would have been-without any hadmot the two German ladies, who had entered the carriage before Dr. Parow intruded himself, come forward spontaneously to testify in behalf of the victim. Strange to say the inspector produced no witnesses, and the court acted on his representation of what occurred ; a practice rendered the more remarkable by the fact that the said inspector was not present when the dispute about the seats began, and only came on the scene to direct violent proceedings in the Asiatic manner. Dr. Parow, himself, the man who with the in- spector should have been at the bar, was not even in the court ! But at all events our countryman was acquitted ? On the con- trary, although his case was proved, although the only witness against him was the fierce inspector, our conntryman was fined twenty thalers and costs ! And he was a lucky man, for the least punishment his own counsel had anticipated was a fortnight's further imprisonment ; so that a fine of twenty thalers and costs was regarded as a triumph by his German friends.
Here you have a measure of Prussian justice. A traveller is supplanted during his absence by a brutal intruder ; he demands his seat ; the punishment for this gross offence is to be flung out on the platform ; he refuses to pay an arbitrary fine ; the punish- ment for this is six days imprisonment, and a fine of twenty thalers and costs. He brings witnesses to prove his case; his prosecutor brings none ; the Magistrate who refused to take bail offered by a British Consul for the appearance in due time of one of the Qu'een's household is the prosecuting counsel, and so hostile to the English people that he declares in court those travelling on the continent to be "notorious for the rudeness, impudence, and blackguardism of their conduct." These three terms certainly apply to the conduct of Dr. Parow, the Bonn Inspector, and Staata
Procu- rator Mier, as they apply to some of the English who travel on the continent. But we defy Mr. Moller to search the records of police and law courts, and find any case that even approximates to the blackguardism, and what is worse injustice, of these Bonn offi- cials. We trust our countryman will get redress, that Queen Victoria will protect her servant, and that justice may be done upon Mr. Inspector and Mr. Staats Procurator.
It were to be too curious, perhaps, to inquire whether Justice, as exemplified in this Bonn case, is the kind of thing to which Germans submit ? If it be, it accounts for many inability phe- nomena in Germany, and notably for the German nability to get accomplishcd anything like independent national life; and the sooner they cease to construct camels out of the depths of their moral consciousness, and apply their minds to the realization of something like practical -and substantial justice, the better for Germany and for Europe. The -saddest side of the Bonn case is the light it throws upon the official-ridden state of the German people.
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