Whether someone jumps out from behind a bush and murders another person, or whether he bumps off people from the columns of an uncivilised newspaper as often as he pleases, the legislation of the future will surely have to regard and to treat this so very differently than nowadays. And yet, there are, thank God, already in this time some authorities of a high mind and of mankind's ethos, who regard the killing of a human _soul_ as at least just as punishable as the murder of a human _body._ On March the 27th, 1905, Lebius had hurled the accusations listed above in his "Sachsenstimme" against Max Dittrich, and on the following November the 18th, he declared to the second criminal division of the Royal Superior Court of Dresden, as it has been recorded: | "I declare that I hereby retract the insulting statements, | | which I have made against the plaintiff in the issue of the | | `Sachsenstimme' from March the 27th, 1905, | | ! ! ! as untrue ! ! ! | | and that I am expressing my regret concerning the statements | | made in the `Sachsenstimme' and that I am therefore | | ! ! ! asking the plaintiff for his forgiveness ! ! !" | Then, when a few years later, Lebius started an argument and lawsuits with the "Vorwärts" in Berlin, they listed the military author Dittrich as a witness against him. Instantly, Lebius resorted to his well-known trick, to eliminate witnesses by means of the press. He once again published precisely the same things he had, at that other time, published about Dittrich and than retracted before the Superior Court of Dresden | ! ! ! as untrue, ! ! ! | begging for forgiveness. Dittrich was therefore forced to sue him again and to point out this retraction and plea for forgiveness. What did Lebius do? He declared in his written statement to the Royal Inferior Court of Charlottenburg from December the 24th, 1909, that, at that time, he had only made this apology and this confession of the untruthfulness of his statements | "for reasons of an economic nature". | His conditions had been thus tight at this time that he could not afford to travel to Dresden to attend the trial. Thus, he personally is the one who is drawing the following moral portrait of himself: | In 1905, Lebius defames the military author Dittrich in his | | paper, published in Dresden. | | In 1905, Lebius declares to the Superior Court of Dresden | | that these defamations were all lies and asks for | | forgiveness. | | In 1909, Lebius publishes in his Berliner paper these | | defamations, he had described as lies, once again, as if they | | were the truth. |