THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1908. ABSURD PROSECUTIONS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3012, 8 October 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1908. ABSURD PROSECUTIONS.

The Magistrate, Mr H. W. Bishop, who recently heard the prosecutions against certain individuals in Christchurch for selling printed master of an alleged immoral nature, has given his decision, and, in our opinion, it is a judgment of a deplorable character. Mr Bishop had at least the opportunity to protest against the action ot these people, who are instrumental in setting in motion vexatious and absurd prosecutions of the kind we allude to, hut he appears to have been somewhat in sympathy with the prosecutions, and he has actually convicted three booksellers' assistants for selling immoral novels, and included among the novels in question are certain works of Victoria Cross. ' The Magistrate expressed the opinion that such prosecutions against persons such as the defendants did not result in any real benefit, snd while dismissing the charge against the employers he convicted the employees,

and in doing so he spoke as follows: —"Their remarks to the purchasers at the time of the sales prove conclusively to my mind that they knew the quality of the books, and that they were different to the ordinary class. If this were not so I would probably have taken a different view ot their actions." Mr Bishop is, of course, a Magistrate, and he cannot bo expected to know more than the law, and how to administer it, but the ordinary layman may be excused if he holds the opinion that it is the business—and it is usually a fact that he does —of the bookseller to know more of the contents of the books that he offers for sale than his assistants do. Moreover, most ordinary individuals know that proprietors of bookselling establishments are kept regularly "posted up" by the publishers in regard to all books that attract any attention. A bookseller has not the faintest idea of his business until he has some knowledge of the kinds of books, and in what numbers the public are inclined to buy the books he offers for sale. But enough of this aspect of the decision. It is Mr Bishop's honest opinion of tne books themselves that we find so interesting. "I agree," he says, "that the books are of varying degrees of immorality, but the imoraiity is present in each one, and it cannot be gainsaid that if the immorality is taken out there is nothing else left that would induce any reader to give the books a second thought." In effect what Mr Bishop says is this, that those thousands of people who have read Victoria Cross' works with pleasure and interest have done so because they contained immoral passages, which, statement is almost paramount to alleging that the said people are fond of immorality in fiction,, at any rate. Of one of these books of "varying degrees of immorality" Anna Lombard, Mr W. T. Stead,, who is after all rather more of a literary judge wo mean —tl aiii M Bishop, has written as follows: —"A remarkable story; a novel: to set peuplie thinking. It is a bold,, brilliant, dafiaot presentation of a phaoe o£. th-a relations of the sexes which l, do.-not remember ever having, seen treated with the same freedom).ddlicj':y unci aaidacity. It is difficult, to- praise the work toohighly."' The Loudo® "Standard" wrote of the.same wOtk. that it was "a very remarkable, and powerful book." Any number-of competent critics have approved: of the book, but in ChristchuEch,. New Zealand, booksellers' assistants are fined for selling'it. Naturally opinion differs most widely as to what i» immodest or immoral, in. literature,, and prosecutions of. the kii'd under notice usually have an unfortunate rather than a beneficial effect. Readers, of Shakespeare, however,, will be glad to know thatiitis-not an, offence within the meaning.of.'any of the clauses, of that most elastic of Statutes, the Police Offences Art,, to sell Shakespeare's work. This point, haa recently beem decided.by two. Justices of the Peace, and it is, therefore, quite incontrovertible.