LITERATURE IN DUNEDIN.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 239, 1 November 1878, Page 2

LITERATURE IN DUNEDIN.

(New Zealand Tablet.)

" Science" is, then, triumphant in Dunedin. We are far in advance of that benighted seat of empire in the North and West, from whence the pioneers of civilization emigrated to New Zealand. The air of these islands of ours is eminently illuminating; it is as invigorating to the intellect as to the lungs, from which it follows that many things are found by our legislators beneficial in their effects which at home they consider as harmful. The masculine mind here is stronger and keener ; any ploughman may at a moment's notice be taken from the furrow to the legislature, where he 'finds himself in a position to condemn as preposterous measures that have met with the approbation, in England, of statesmen of high standing ; and it is evident that the guardians of public morals with us are resolved that demoralising influences may exist with impunity here, although in the old country such influences have been suppressed and condemned. In a word, that noted production, " The Fruits of PhUosophy," famous, or infamous as the case may be, in con-

nection with the names of Mr Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant, and with the cause advocated by these individuals, is now openly sold at a hook-stall which occupies a prominent stand in the Otagan capital. There is no disguise abou;< the matter ; none of those subterfuges are resorted to which, for example, are the speciality of Holly well street in London. A large notice painted conspicuously on that end of the stall in question which faces the railway station, advertises the disgusting pamphlet, and cannot fail to attract the passers-by moving in the direction of Cargill's monument. We write for the information of persons, including the functionaries of the law, who are not residents in Dunedin, for to these last the matter must be well known. An applicant at the stall may obtain the pamphlet for the comparatively high sum of three and sixpence, and the proprietor, charmed no doubt by the scientific leaning betrayed by his customer's demand, will further give, gratis, the information that he himself is the only bookseller in the city who is sufficiently independent to sell this racy morsel ; that, to their credit be it recorded, no printer in Dunedin would consent to print it, and that therefore it was necessary to inport it at considerable expense from Victoria—they are still a little in advance of us in Victoria, but we are moving on rapidly, and that, finally, the authorities at the Dunedin Custom House wished to detain the work, but were obliged to yield on being threatened with the law, or, as it is elegantly expressed by the dealer in question, on its being threatened that the "' Kibosh' would be put upon them." Appearances, however, are frequently deceptive, and we confess that " our philosophy " would have moved us when we made our unclean purchase to have taken the whole stock in trade up in a pair of tongs and flung it into the nearest cesspool. As the question, then, is a *" scientific " one, we venture to recommend it to the attention of the Attorney General. The work referred to is illegal in the old country, and we have not yet heard that the law condemning obscene publications has been altered to suit the more vigorous intellects of this colony. Meanwhile old-fashioned people are of opinion that the law might as veil be observed. With suggestive illustrations exhibited in the window of a shop, behind whose counter a young woman is still not ashamed to serve, we conclude we must put up ; but open obscenity should be treated as the law directs.

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