322 



GERMANY, THE PEESS OF, IN 1868. 



lation having risen considerably. The Presse, 

 which in 1867 had only twelve thousand sub- 

 scribers, never printed less than seventeen 

 thousand copies in 1868, and on two occasions 

 sold fifty thousand extra copies. The other 

 Vienna dailies obtained a similar increase in 

 their circulation. 



One of the most important events in the 

 history of the German press, during the year 

 1868, was the determined attempt made by a 

 very large majority of the journeymen print- 

 ers to put an end to type-setting and perform- 

 ing press-work on Sundays. A printers' con- 

 gress held at Berlin in the latter part of the 

 spring passed resolutions to this effect ; and no 

 sooner had the telegraph circulated the report 

 of these resolutions in the various parts of the 

 country than the journeymen printers and 

 press-men, in the printing-offices of nearly 

 every daily paper published in Germany, in- 

 formed their employers that they would no 

 longer work on Sundays. This step called 

 forth the most strenuous resistance on the 

 part of the newspaper publishers, inasmuch as 

 most of them were issuing Monday editions, 

 and their refusal to employ journeymen that 

 refused to work on Sundays gave rise to an 

 extensive strike among the compositors and 

 press-men. In consequence of this strike, not 

 a few of the most influential German news- 

 papers were forced to suspend for several days, 

 while others had to reduce their reading mat- 

 ter considerably. Appeals made to the au- 

 thorities to intervene between the contending 

 parties were unsuccessful. After a great deal 

 of wrangling, an amicable arrangement . was 

 finally arrived at, and the result was that nearly 

 all the German dailies discontinued their Mon- 

 day editions. 



The press laws in some of the German 

 States underwent important alterations in 

 the course of the year 1868. In the grand- 

 duchy of Baden the adoption of a new and 

 liberal law, in which the oppressive features of 

 the former press law, that had been dictated 

 by the reactionary spirit engendered by the 

 revolutionary events of 1848 and 1849, were 

 omitted, placed the newspaper press of Baden 

 on a more independent footing than that of 

 any other German State. The number of 

 prosecutions instituted in this grand-duchy in 

 the year 1868, against editors and publishers 

 for offences against the press laws, was only 

 nine ; most of these prosecutions were directed 

 against the (editors of ultramontane journals, 

 opposing in a spirit of intense bitterness and 

 hostility the friendly course which the Govern- 

 ment of Baden was pursuing toward Prussia 

 in regard to the German question. 



In the kingdom of Saxony, the adoption of 

 the new criminal code led likewise to the re- 

 peal of the most rigorous paragraphs of the 

 press laws of 1849. "Offences against his 

 Majesty, and against the other members of the 

 royal house," which play such an important 

 role in the press codes of most of the German 



States, are no longer to be found in that of 

 Saxony. The number of journalists prose- 

 cuted in that .kingdom in the year 1868 for 

 violations of the press laws was trifling. Most 

 of the editors who were prosecuted were ar- 

 raigned on charges of no great importance, 

 and the courts acquitted nearly all of them. 



In Wurtemberg, where the press is com- 

 paratively free, no changes of importance were 

 made in the press laws. If the number of 

 prosecutions of journalists for infractions of 

 these laws was rather large in 1868, it was 

 owing to the intense excitement to which the 

 elections for the German Zoll-Parliament gave 

 rise at the beginning of the year, and to the 

 fact that Stuttgart, the capital of the kingdom, 

 is the headquarters of the extreme wing of 

 the South-German Democracy, whose most 

 influential organ, the Beolachter, edited by 

 Charles Mayer, is published there. The de- 

 fiant boldness with which this journal attacked 

 Prussia and the Wurtemberg Government, in 

 nearly every issue, involved it in a large num- 

 ber of prosecutions, most of which terminated 

 in sentences imposing fines and imprisonment 

 on the accused editor. 



In Bavaria the administration of Prince 

 Hohenlohe inaugurated a decidedly liberal 

 system in its treatment of the political press. 

 During the year 1868 the Bavarian Govern- 

 ment had only five papers prosecuted for polit,- 

 ical offences; and all the articles designated 

 were deemed objectionable, not because of the 

 political principles they advocated, but on ac- 

 count of the personal attacks they contained. 

 A commission, composed of several eminent 

 jurists and statesmen, was organized in the 

 autumn of 1868 for the purpose of subjecting 

 the press laws of Bavaria to a thorough re- 

 vision ; but the results of their labors have not 

 yet been submitted to the Bavarian Chambers. 



In Prussia the changes made in regard to 

 the taxes on newspapers, the reduction of the 

 post-office tariff, and the measures adopted for 

 adding to the efficiency of the mail service, 

 were the only improvements by which the 

 newspaper press of the kingdom profited in 

 .the year 1868. In every other respect its con- 

 dition remained as unsatisfactory as ever. The 

 appointment of Mr. Leonhard as Minister of 

 Justice, in the place of Count Zur Lippe, who, 

 during the whole of his administration, had 

 pursued a prescriptive course toward the Lib- 

 eral newspapers, had given rise to the hope 

 that the number of press prosecutions, which 

 in 1867 had been frightfully large, would con- 

 siderably decrease in 1868 ; but this" hope was 

 only partially fulfilled. The public prosecutors 

 pursued about the same course as before, and 

 the number of press trials fell short but very 

 little of that of 1867. In the newly-annexed 

 provinces of the kingdom, Schleswig-Holstein, 

 Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Nassau, where 

 grievous blunders committed by the adminis- 

 tration had created a great deal of dissatisfac- 

 tion among the inhabitants, the press, naturally 



