WELL-LINED HAMPERS

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 17, 20 January 1914, Page 5

WELL-LINED HAMPERS

ASSIST APPLICATIONS. TO COLOGNE POLICE. LONDON, January K>. The Berlin correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" says that Herr Sollman, the editor of the Socialist paper, the "Rheinische Zeitung," has been fined 500 marks (£25) at Cologne for libelling the police and the public prosecutor, although on the main points both the evidence and the judgment completely justified the articles forming the basis of the charge. The Court expressly admitted that four out of six police inspectors, and two-com-missioners of police, had accepted bribes. The evidence showed that it was quite customary for persons seeking license or privileges for restaurants, cafes, or dancing halls to send the police or their wives luncheon hampers with banknotes to the value of £5 concealed inside. The officials testified that in the case of the robbery and murder of a girl where promptitude was urgent they took a cab. For cases such as that they were allowed only 34d per day, although ample money was at the disposal of the political police. The correspondent adds that the latter's principal activity is the harassing of Socialists without any apparent effect, beyond the increase of the Socialist strength.