The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1892-06-23
LESE Majestic, a GRIM E.

-
WHERE 1T DOES NOT DO TO
INSULT ROYALTY.
You VIII Suffer for 1t if You Are in
Reach of Royalty's InHuence-How
Queen Christina Punished
Tickle Lover.
#s MY first experience OF the penalties
attending the crime of lese majestic
occurred when | was about ten years
OF age. We were spending the sum
mer at some German baths where
young Prince William the present
emperor Of Germany was then stay
ing. says a writer in the New York
tribune. | suppose it was due to the
associations of my mothers family
with the royal house of Prussia, and
her own former connection with the
court OF Berlin, that my brother and
myself We're selected as playmates for
the 'elght-year- old prince. We used to
quarrel a good deal. chiefly in conse-
quence OF the princes insistance that
IN playing at soldiers he should al
ways act as officer and we merely as
the rank and file. During the course
OF one of these daily quarrels I was
unfortunate enough to apostrophize
the future emperor as liar
This shocked my mother sentiment
OF loyalty and devotion to the Hohen-
zollern family in such measure that
she felt it incumbent upon her to
take me home at once. and to lock me
up supperless in my room until the
next day at noontime, when I was
taken to the villa inhabited by the
prince. and made to ask his pardon
for my rudeness or as I should be
tempted to describe it now, for my
lese majestic. ..E -
Were l or any one else to- day to re.
peat that epithet of 'liar'' in connec-
ton with Emperor William, either in
his presence or in the hearing of any
one of his loyal subjects it would in
volve an imprisonment not of twen-
ty-tour hours in a comfortable bed
room, but a detention ranging from one
or two months to a maximum OF five
years in a gloomy jail. This is the
penalty prescribed by the code for the
crime OF lese majestic The code,
however, does not define what lese
majestic really is. That is a matter
which is left to the discretion of often
over Jealous officials
. Lese majestic is crime of which,
fortunately, but little is known in
America. On the other side of the
Atlantic it. however, plays a very i'm
portant role-never more so, perhaps,
than now in Germany and Austria
where hundreds of people have been
sentenced to various terms of NEAR
ceration for having spoken disrespect-
fully of the sovereign.
A short time ago a woman at Prague
was likewise condemned to three
months Imprisonment for having
spoken disrespectfully of the Imperial
family the disrespect consisting in a
remark which she made during some
public ceremony. to the effect that
Archduke Frederick. who was present,
was a ''hubscher Kerr. " which literal
ly translated means "a pretty fellow"
In this case. however: the family of
the cul prit had the means necessary
to defray the cost of an appeal against
the sentence, which was finally
quashed by the Supreme Court OF the
Empire of Vienna.
An equally preposterous case was
n hn n1S
Zeitung; who shortly after the access
sion of Emperor William was charged
with lese majestic Of having said in
his newspaper that the young monarch
had been seen in an ''einspanner" or
one-horse cab In making the state
ment the object Of the editor had been
to give an illustration OF Williams
democratic ways or rather of those
which the Germans would have wished
him to have inherited from his Ia
mented father. The authorities how
ever held that the paragraph was
calculated to bring ridicule upon the
sovereign. and accordingly. the
editor was sentenced by the tribunal
at Potsdam to either imprisonment
or to fine. | forget which.
1t therefore follows that if anyone
should catch sight of the German en-
peror in a one horse concern he would
do we'll to keep it dark and not men,
ton 1t to anyone. lest he should incur
dire penalties and loss of liberty. He
can save himself however, from all
these dangers by embroidering on the
true facts, and adding an Imaginary
horse to the equipage in which he has
seen the emperor. It would be- an
exaggeration. but it would preserve
the speaker from the peril of Jail.
No less than nine persons are now
undergoing imprisonment for having
remained seated at public banquets
while the German emperor's health
was being drunk. the charge against
them in each case being that of Males
tats Beleidigung or lese majestic.
All Of these sentences have a sort of
Medieval SAVIOR about them, and are
uasuited and out Of keeping with a
civilization SO enlightened as that of
the closing decade of the nineteenth
century. They serve to call to mind
the case Of Queen Christina Of Sweden
ord IF 1,or cropl 81,