By 1905, when the appeals court in Aachen heard the beggar’s appeal, the status quo was still a muddle. Such indeterminacy was unusual for Schmitz, whose earlier rulings suggested a man who dealt in absolutes. Just months before, he had elected to overturn a fine for a local bureaucrat who, despite having betrayed “the spirit” of his office by selling citizens’ addresses to third-party advertisers, had not literally violated the legal code.
Steven Michael Press, To Govern or Not to Govern: Prussia and Neutral Moresnet, page 8