“PULP” MAGAZINES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 April 1938, Page 9

“PULP” MAGAZINES

EVER INCREASING MENACE STRESSED. VIEWS OF WOMEN’S INSTITUTES, “That members of Women’s Institutes be urged to take an interest in overcoming the menace of unsuitable reading matter which, in the form of magazines, escapes the existing classification of ‘indecent literature’ ” was a remit adopted at yesterday’s council meeting of the Bush-Wairarapa Federation of Women’s Institutes, held at Carterton.

Mrs M. G. Macky, Eketahuna, referred to the ever increasing menace of “indecent literature” and said that while casually turning over the pages of a magazine in a book shop recently she came across a picture of an entirely naked women doing exercises. That sort of matter should definitely not be allowed into the Dominion. There were also on sale magazines which featured crime and other objectionable matters. We wanted the best of our children but before they were old enough to know what to read they were absorbing that sort of stuff.

A member said that every effort should be made to prevent the sale of “pulp” magazines in the interests of home and happiness. Mrs H. M. B. Trapp: “How do the magazines get into the country?” A delegate: “A member of our Institute is the wife of a bookseller and she says that the magazines come into New Zealand packed round other books and stationery. Her husband will not sell them and she uses piles of them to boil the clothes on washing day.” There was no further discussion and the remit was adopted.