[p. 560]
|560| this subject was treated. Even upon the second motion of Herr von Forstner there followed only a summons to the committee to hasten its work. After the assembly met again on 16 October, following the adjournment of 27 July, nothing further was heard of this matter; Herr von Forstner did not desist, and on 5 December revived the subject; other deputies of New Württemberg joined their voices.
If a petition of two official scribes, against one of whom very urgent complaints (Div. XIX, p. 27) came in immediately afterwards, begs the assembly for an improvement of the provision for this estate, which, as they assure, through its institution has had for centuries already the most beneficent influence upon the state and its members before other countries (Div. XVIII, p. 27), – then other petitions, coming in in ever greater number, many of which remained unprinted, and indeed as the general voice of New Württemberg (Div. XVIII, p. 95 ff.), declared on the contrary that, when there is talk of grievances and oppressions of the land, this evil must be named first of all, – they added the evidence which sufficiently confirmed this, “that the assembly might be concerned with arrangements whereby the estate of scribes would no longer need to ponder day and night how to hold the citizen to ransom and to found its rise on the ruin of the subject”. In all these petitions the most glaring facts are adduced and the strongest expressions used against this oppression.
About the time when these pleas for help against this sucking dry, cheating and ransoming came in, the pursuit of remonstrances against a royal rescript of tax enforcement of the middle of January 1816, concerning the annual tax of 1815/16, was a main occupation of the assembly of estates. The complaints about the unbearable scourge of the land, driving to despair, and the ransoming by
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.