http://overthebrink.com/pblog/index.php http://overthebrink.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry160417-122353 http://overthebrink.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry160220-055040
In the meantime, the Prussian government respected the Hannoverian parliament members, as the newly gained territory was reorganized according to its needs directed towards a streamlined military and fiscal constitution, and Wilhelm I., König von Preussen decreed the enactment regarding the Constitution of Districts and Agencies in the province of Hannover on September 12, 1867. It maintained the powers of the administrative districts, but appointed as their supervisor an administrator, to whom auxiliary officers could be assigned. Districts were developed for further administrative purposes through the consolidation of administrative districts and independent cities, 36 in number, over whom for the time being was to preside a district captain. Military and fiscal affairs fell under his responsibility.

A new development however introduced the provision : each district constituted a district professions collective. It was to be endowed with the rights of a corporation, whose organ was the district professions, to which particular land owners and representatives of the cities and rural communities belonged. They convened under the chairmanship of the district captain in regional councils. The district budget, administration of institutions belonging to the district, justice, the levying of contributions to charitable objectives of the local inhabitants, as well as the appointment of public officials for the district.

A clear separation of responsabilities between the district and the agencies was lacking, even if the authority was given to the district councillors through a district bylaw to individually regulate the particular articles of their district charter. Nevertheless, the district corporations in the province of Hannover attained little significance, as the Prussian interior minister could still observe in 1881.

The register of the districts in the province of Hannover appended to the decree of 1867 named under number 34 the district of Lingen, which was to be made up of the Bentheim, Neuenhaus, Lingen and Lingen city departments. For the elections to the Prussian parliament, which occurred after the Prussian three-class franchise, this district formed one constituency. In contrast to the case of elections to the Northern German Federation (from 1871 for the Reichstag) for which the universal, direct and secret suffrage applied, the Grafschaft ranked third from among approximately 19 voting districts in the province of Hannover, which was comprised of Meppen, Aschendorf-Hümmling (excluding Papenburg), Lingen and Bentheim. Because this referendum concerned pure candidate centered elections, in 1867, it was possible for the Catholic and Guelph Ludwig Windthorst to be nominated during an assembly in Nordhorn, where more than an 80% share of the population was protestant; it was not a surprise that he also won the election, given the confessional structure in the rest of districts within the electoral district, in which the Catholics had the majority.

The apportionment of the districts while retaining the administrative districts proved inexpedient; the districts (Aemter) were too small for the envisaged tasks, the existing districts (Kreise)on the other hand were too large. A reform for the optimization of the administrative structure was still needed.
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In the organization of the government administration, for the time being, no changes occurred, The governor-general only decreed on October 30, that the public authorities henceforth shall take on the Prussian Royal designation.]]> http://overthebrink.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry151225-110147
Thinking about the future can lead to anxiety, thinking about the past to self judgement and depression. Thoughts of the future and past can be far from reality. Living in the present is as close as you can get to reality. I can't really argue with that.

And the instructions against judging and striving seem right to me. And yet where personal ambition fits into the picture remains puzzling to me.

The autopilot is a good metaphore. Helpful, and unhelpful at the same time. The autopilot allows us to multitask, to repeat complicated sequences with relative ease, but also keeps us from focussing. It's easy to lose track of the present and become lost in thought.

And sometimes when one is going through a hard time, it can seem like those hard times have been around forever and will last forever. I find in Mindfulness a comforting message in the mountain meditation of the temporality of disagreeable events. The storm passes. Winter turns to Spring.

The sceptic in me still finds much which is mysterious about Mindfulness, some Gurus who make vague and simple statements about happyness, for example. It often seems out of reach. I need to know why and how it works.

But I find it very diifficult to have self compassion, and very difficult to meditate regularly. It's sometimes unpleasant and often boring. It often does not seem like a fun thing to do. Just do it says the therapist. I don't want to says the child in me. I don't find the meaning.]]> http://overthebrink.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry151122-124401
The bailiwicks as sub-districts were done away with, and the police duties placed henceforth with the Amt or with the communities. The town ordinances were enacted in 1851 pursuant to this political reform. for the historical cities of the Grafschaft It meant the loss of their designation as cities; they were crossed off the list of independent cities, and for them, in a new chapter of community autonomy, the Rural Community Ordnance entered into force.

Through the law over the constitution of the courts of 1850, the administration of justice was separated from the administration. The designation district court still brought to mind the former regulatory unity. After the bureaucratic reorganization of 1852 the entire public administration of the lower courts in their district fell to the Amtern, insofar as it was not transferred to other authorities. In the jurisdiction of the Amter fell in addition to the hitherto sphere of authority also sovereignty matters, military and fiscal matters; the independent control for the ongoing commercial operations was emphasized through a compulsion and penal power, with which their directives were reinforced.

The law, also passed in 1852, over the Amtsvertretung positioned near the as yet bureaucratic structure of the Amt as administrative authority the indirectly elected representation in the form of the Amts assembly and enabled thereby the beginnings of the development of a municipal association, even if a decree of the Hannoverian Interior Ministry clarified, that the Amts district represented no regional authority.

With the establishment of 31 new Amtern the Hannoverian Kingdom counted nearly 45 independent cities, 175 Amter, of which Neuenhaus, with 18500 people was the largest Amt. The revised Amt order of 1859 reduced the number of Amter to 102, so that the average number of inhabitants of an administrative district amounted to 16000 people; the Bentheim Amt still comprised in 1880 according to the census only 10476 inhabitants, the Neuenhaus Amt in contrast 20520 people. ]]> http://overthebrink.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry151111-160113
Only with the settlement of the lordly rights was Hannover free to insert Bentheim into an administrative organization already well established in other lands. In addition, the king decreed on May 20, 1824 the edict over the Administrative and Legal Constitution in Bentheim county, which, because it was too large for a single district, was divided according to the recommendation of the Prince into the two princely Bentheim Mediat-Aemter Bentheim and Neuenhaus. For each district a baillif and a district assessor were appointed. All parishes in the upper county (with the exception of Nordhorn), the city of Schüttorf and the Bentheim Flecken belonged to the Bentheim district, while the parishes of the lower county, the city of Neuenhaus as well as the parish of Nordhorn and the Wietmarschen community were added to the Neuenhas district. Within the districts the parish communities were merged into bailiwicks after the abolition of the Cantonal unions dating back to the French period. In each of the three cities of Schüttorf, Nordhorn and Neuenhaus and in the Bentheim Flecken should be a magistrate responsibile for local administration, the villages and flat lands fell to the bailifs. The activities of the Bentheim districts were matched to the king's, in other words, they had the same judicial and administrative duties, namely the administration of justice as well as the sovereign and police administration of first recourse. The smaller Bentheim district was at the same time the criminal investigation bureau for the county. A lordly Bentheim Justice Chancellery for Bentheim county with a chancellor, two assessors with voting power and a secretary corresponding to the will of the Princes was set up as the appellate court.

The edict over the new organization came into effect on September 1, 1824. On this day, the royal commissioner Duncker, in the presence of princely court counselor Bornemann conducted the installation of the two Mediatämter and the lordly chancellery.]]> http://overthebrink.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry151029-172711
In 1815, the Vienna Congress arranged anew the territorial circumstances in all of Europe at the expense of many small states; its final act bestowed (which was elevated to a kingdom in 1814) to Hannover considerable territorial gains, it confirmed at the same time the Hannovarian pledge rights over the Bentheim Grafschaft and dictated that through its redemption the Grafschaft should be brought under the control of the Kingdom of Hannover.

In terminating the pledge contract of 1752 the discernably far sighted Hannoverian policy had the hoped for success; Prussia was eliminated as a competitor in the border region with the Netherlands, that is, Rheina-Wolbeck and Meppen, and surrendered East Frisia. An all around territorial stranglehold of Hannover by Prussia, which was completely within their means, was thereby avoided.

Against the provisions of the pledge contract, whose validity particularly regarding territorial sovereignty the Congress act of 1815 had explicitly acknowledged, Hannover began at once with the objective to virtually integrate the Bentheim territory into the prevailing system in the rest of the Hannoverian territories with concrete and massive inroads in its law and administration.

In 1816 the Hannovarian Military and Postal Administration, and in 1817 the general Taxation system were established. In 1818 even the general royal estates assembly was made responsible for Bentheim.

Hannover was completely aware of the questionable legality of its behavior, it was only possible for the Ministry to report in 1821 that apart from the pledge contract, Hannover had not yet obtained Sovereignty over Bentheim.

After years of tough negotiations between the two very unequal contractual partners, the king and the count (he was elevated to the rank of Prince by the Prussians; Hannover recognized the elevation) who due to widely divergent prospects about options and details of a compromise over the mutual financial claims and sovereign authority led to no conclusion, the king, in contempt of recognized legal principles, terminated the pledge on September 1, 1822 and discontinued the payments to the prince. Following these measures the prince was forced in 1823 to approve an arrangement over the annulment of the pledge, in which against the aim fixed in the Congress act he was exempted from only a portion of the pledge amount; it restored his domain to him and compensated him for the renunciation of effective sovereignty, ceded to him notably the goods of the disbanded Wietmarschen Cloister and also partially of the Frenswegens disbanded cloister.]]> http://overthebrink.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry150308-165439
Around 1810, with the borders of the effective implementation of Napoleon's Continental blockade newly drawn, and the Grafschaft annexed to the hitherto French Imperial Ems department, it was again absurdly divided between the Dutch Départements Ijsselmündung and West-Ems. This territorial grouping was also not to last, already in April 1811, the entire Grafschaft became a part of the Lippe-Départements as the Arrondissement Neuenhaus. The seat of a sub prefecture was established in Neuenhaus,to which the Bentheim, Nordhorn and Neuenhaus cantons were subordinate. At the same time, Neuenhaus received a Tribune of the first Instance, added to which Justices of the Peace were appointed in Bentheim, Nordhorn and Emlichheim.]]> http://overthebrink.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry150304-164048
Hannover thereupon stopped its payments to the county debt redemption and at the end of the war did not initially resume them. Instead, the counts' king granted them a loan. The king wrote to his finance minister about it : "The more indebted the count is to us, the less he can hope to make his county free again."

Against this backdrop it is not surprising that in the following decade all efforts by the Bentheim counts to redeem the mortgage fell through. Hannover interpreted the provisions of the mortgage contract unilaterally to its own advantage. The king managed to discourage, through political pressure and as a result of the contractually guaranteed option to purchase of potential lenders to the counts, with whose help the mortgage redemption amount would have had to be raised.

In May 1803, the French/English war suspended the mortgage with the invasion of French troops in Bentheim. The military phases of the conflict soon gripped all of Europe. Due to a convention of 1804, the house of Bentheim-Steinfurt under count Ludwig obtained possession of the county again for a period of two years.

But Napoleon Bonaparte again deprived the count of his rights in 1806 and incorporated the county into the Great Duchy of Berg. The Grand Duchy of Berg Provincial administration of Bentheim and Steinfurt governed the land. In the inner organization of the county lands innovations now occurred that would have far reaching consequences.

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The mortgage contract of May 22 1752 handed the county over to King George of Hannover "with all of its accessories ...". At the same time, the king pledged not to change anything in the makeup of the Bentheimer country - neither in religious nor in political aspects - but to keep everything in "status quo and according to local customs".

With the county, the king took over a political territory with an "estate constitution", whose statutes were the "Concordat" of 1680 between the respective counts and his status. The "Laudum Regium" of 1701 confirmed and completed this.

The king's proclamation of the acquisition of the county followed on May 24, 1753. For Hannover, this step meant a significant expansion of it's influence toward the west - across Osnabrück, Münster and Prussian territory to the Dutch border.

The "Royal British and Electoral Brunswick-Lüneburg government" began its administration of the mortgaged Bentheim county.]]>