suspected of being a Bohemian sympathizer, was summarily removed. Two of the most noted journalists, Julius Grégr and J. St. Skrejšovský, who had the courage to fight the Auersperg-Lasser Ministry openly, were put in jail for an alleged attempt to defraud the government of a trifling tax with which newspaper advertisements were assessable. Both languished in jail for months. As an instance of official meanness, the case of the publisher of the “Correspondence Slave” should be mentioned. This man received a long term in prison for failure to pay a newspaper tax amounting to less than half a florin (20 cents).
And because Bohemian juries almost uniformly acquitted journalists brought before them for political offenses, prosecuting attorneys resorted to the expedient of a change of venue to cities inhabited by Germans. To eminent jurists protesting that a procedure of this kind was unconstitutional, the Minister of Justice replied that state necessities justified this course. On one occasion a deputation of representative citizens of Prague called on Baron Koller to complain of the arbitrariness of the police. “Gentlemen, I hope you do not wish me to be uncivil to you. I am exceedingly busy, and inasmuch as I have nothing to say to you, I must ask you to leave the room in five minutes. And when the deputation, incensed over Koller’s
