Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 July 1892 — What Lese Mavjeste Is. [ARTICLE]

What Lese Mavjeste Is.

Lese majeste is a crime unknown in the United States. On the other side of the Atlantic, however, hundreds of people have been sentenced lately, especially in Germany, for its commission. Its essence consists in speaking in any way with disrespect or irreverence of the reigning prince. A few instances of this law’s operation may be interesting. On March 3 last a servant girl, just 17 years of age, was sentenced at Dresden to three months’ imprisonment for lese majeste, the latter having consisted of speakingdisrespectfullyof Emperor William. A short time ago a lady at Prague was likewise condemned to three months’ imprisonment for having spoken disrespectfully of the Imperial family, the disrespect consisting of a remark which she made during some public ceremony to the effect that Archduke Frederick, who was present, was a pretty fellow. An equally preposterous case was that of the editor of the Potsdamer Zeitung, who shortly after the accession of Emperor William was charged with lese majeste for having said in his newspaper that the young monarch had been seen in a one-horse cab. In making the statement the object of the editor had been to give an illustration of William’s democratic ways, or rather of those which the Germans would have wished him to have inherited from his lamented father. The authorities, however, held that the paragraph was calculated to bring ridicule upon the sovereign, and accordingly the editor was sentenced by the tribunal at Potsdam to imprisonment. No less than nine persons are now undergoing imprisonment for having remained seated at public banquets when the German Emperor’s health was being drunk, the charge against them in each case being that of majestats beliedigung, or lese majeste. All these sentences have a sort of medieval savor about them, and are unsuited and out of keeping with a civilization so enlightened as that of the closing decade of the nineteenth century.