A PROTEST.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 46, 10 February 1894, Page 12

A PROTEST.

to the editor. Sir, —Parliament concerned itself ■a session or two since with the protection of the public morals against •advertisements of a certain class, and the publication of what may be broadly termed obscene literature. The law lias been, I believe, strictly ■enforced in so far as the advertising •columns of the Press and the post •office is concerned. But, sir, there appears to me to bo a direction in which it has utterly failed of its pur- „ pose. I refer to the Police Court reports of the Press generally, and the local section in particular. Only last week there was described in minute detail the particulars of one of the saddest cases I have •ever heard of. Anything more calculated to corrupt the youthful mind or pander to adult pruriency was never printed. The journals in which the reports appeared consider themselves, I have no doubt, respectable; but, really the dividing line is almost imperceptible. For brutal frankness one report out-Herods Zola, whose writings are, in England and I believe this colony, proscribed. Is therj no way of preventing such breaches, not so much, of good taste as of pure morality? I shall be surprised if the clergy of the district do not make common cause in impressing upon the conductors of the journals in •question the necessity of greater regard for decency. Journals that are family papers should not contain matter fit only for special publications.—l am, Ac., Parent.