The Times of Monday contains an instance of the extent
to which interference with personal liberty is carried in Prussia. A joiner wanted to call his daughter Lassalline Bebeline, after Lassalle and Bebel, the Socialists. The registrar objected to these names, and on his being sued by the joiner, the Court upheld the registrar's objection. In its judgment, the names mentioned by the plaintiff were inadmissible, inasmuch as they were " offensive" (anstossig), and, besides, were not Christian names at all. It was added "that the plaintiff was in error if he supposed that, as the father, he had a right to give his child any name he pleased. In the first place, he was not permitted to choose as Christian names such as were calculated to give offence, as in the present case ; and secondly, he was also restricted to a choice of such Christian names as were by custom and general applica- tion usual, and recognised as such, and thus the formation of a new name, as in the present case, was altogether excluded." The decision is doubtless good Prussian law, but anything more monstrously unjust and oppressive it is impossible to imagine. And yet it is sometimes said that, substantially, Prussia is as free as England. We doubt whether, even after the Restoration, Judge Jeffreys would have held that the Common Law would not allow a man to call his son Cromwell or Hampden.
Previous page
