had turned ferociously against the King. In the Rhine Provinces, and more or less generally all over Prussia, they were so exasperated that they, being short themselves of men able to represent them in the Press, went to the length of an alliance with the extreme philosophical party, of which we have spoken above. The fruit of this alliance was the Rhenish Gazette of Cologne,[1] a paper which was suppressed after fifteen months’ existence, but from which may be dated the existence of the Newspaper Press in Germany. This was in 1842.
The poor King, whose commercial difficulties were the keenest satire upon his Mediæval propensities, very soon found out that he could not continue to reign without making some slight concession to the popular outcry for that “Representation of the People,” which, as the last remnant of the long-forgotten promises of 1813 and 1815, had been embodied in the law of 1820.
- ↑ “The Rhenish Gazette.” This paper was published at Cologne, as the organ of the Liberal leaders, Hansemann and Camphausen. Marx contributed certain articles on the Landtag, which created so great a sensation that he was offered in 1842—although only 24 years of age—the editorship of the paper. He accepted the offer, and then began his long fight with the Prussian Government. Of course the paper was published under the supervision of a censor, but he, good, easy man, was hopelessly outwitted by the young firebrand. So the Government sent a second “special” censor from Berlin, but the double censorship proved unequal to the task, and in 1843 the paper was suppressed.
