The Sun. — 1849-01-10 (London, England)

PRUSSIA.  M. Temme, the Director of the Chief Court in Munster, who was arrested there by the order of that Court itself on a charge of treason, for the part he took in the vote refusing the payment of taxes, has published a formal protest against his arrest. He denies that the local court has any jurisdiction in a matter which, if it involve any criminality, comes under the cognizance of the Court of Berlin alone, and impugns the step it has taken on account of its previously expressed animosity to him, which prevents its deciding any question by which he is affected with impartiality. He denies also that a deputy can be proceeded against for anything he may have (lone in his legislative capacity. He claims a speedy hearing and legal decision in his case, which, however, must be removed .from the Court of Munster, on every legal ground, of incompetence, and because as it has commenced the prosecution, it cannot also pronounce the decision. By his own account of his arrest, and the first steps of the inquiry, the proceedings against him appear to have been somewhat informal :  " By order of the Court of Justice of this city I was suddenly arrested on the 28th inst. and confined in the city prison. In the warrant of arrest it was stated that the Chief Court of Justice had commenced a prosecution against me for having aided in carrying into effect the well-known refusal of taxes resolution, passed on the 15th of November. The examination and imprisonment had been decreed without any preliminary inquiry having taken place. On my being examined I was informed that the prosecution had been commenced on the ground of a proclamation issued by the deputies of the National Assembly to the Prussian people, which had been published on the sth of December by he Deutsche Reform, a journal appearing at Berlin, and in which my name was mentioned among others. A copy of the paper was laid before me. No other charge was made against me. Only on the ground of a statement contained in that journal, as the decree of the Court expressly mentioned, a prosecution for high treason had been commenced against me, and my imprisonment had been ordered. I, of course, refused to give any explanations at the examination. To be imprisoned and prosecuted for high treason merely on the ground of a statement made by a journal is a case entirely unprecedented in the administration of justice in Prussia." The letter is dated from the criminal prison, where, he says, the President of the Supreme Court may have been sent by his colleagues to a cell prepared for his reception by removing the robbers or murderers who were its former tenants ! It has been before stated that if the prosecution is conducted wholly at the discretion of the judges of the different courts, the judicial officers compromised will be treated with the utmost severity, so fierce is party feeling. M. Temme was for several years second director of the Criminal ;Court of Berlin, but afterwards was removed to Tilsit—it is said, on account of his contributions to the Lcipziger Zeitung. He was then called to fill the post he recently held in the superior Court of Munster. As a writer on criminal law his reputation is great ; but though he has a large circle of friends in Berlin, in Munster he was not much liked; his nomination to the Court there violated the old principle of promotion by seniority, and this prejudiced his colleagues against him. He is himself a Catholic, but having married a Protestant, allows his children to be educated in the Evangelical Church—another cause of offence to the Catholic population of Munster. No doubt now remains that the prosecution of the Deputies of the Opposition has the full approval of the Ministry. In addition to M. Temme and the other judicial Deputies who have been arrested, the same step has been taken against those Deputies who held any administrative office under the Government in the provinces. It is understood that the warrants are prepared for the apprehension of the whole 180 Members who signed the resolution. The process will be one of the most gigantic political prosecutions ever recorded.