The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1908. THE BOOK PROSECUTIONS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 08, 8 October 1908, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1908. THE BOOK PROSECUTIONS

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■■ + — -— N an address at Chelsea (Massachusetts) in 1885, Russell Lowell said : • There is a choice in books as in friends, and the mind sinks or rises to the - level of its habitual society— is subdued, as-Shake-speare says of the dyer's hand, to what it works in.' In this well-known truth of human experience lies, especially for the young, the p&il-of the more or less erotic books that are being imported in great numbers into these countries. ' Mr. Dooley ' says that a considerable number of the books that come tumbling out of the world's presses are J,he work of • thin, peevish men ' that are 'always gettin' licked.' It is this class that seems to be largely responsible at the present time foV the flood of suggestive and unwholesome literature that is such a menace to the morals of the rising generation. • The authors of this malodorous lilerar> waste— mostly women by_ the way— have none of the -qualities that would gain them a hearing by legitimate methods. They are of the class that are always gettin' licked' in the struggle' for literary survival -oome of the unfit drop out of competition ; some continue the unequal struggle and starve more "or less decently; others resort to unworthy devices to win a passing notoriety and the dishonored shekels that come of it. Among this class, some achieve their end by the method which enables a small man to step for a moment -into the limelight by attacking a great man -or a great organisation. Thus, the soi-disant 'Roman Catholic' McCarthy contrived to turn into chinking coins of the realm sundry agglomerates of slipshod and semi-illiterate printed stuff, the sole merit of which, to the class of readers to whom he appealed, was his rough and calumnious attacks upon the Catholic priesthood and ' the Catholic people of Ireland. A similar remark applies .0 the preposterous, ' penny-dreadful ' sort of No-Popery romance with which the Rev. Joseph Hocking doses the same class- of readers, as Mrs. Squeers dosed the boys of Dotheboy's Hall with measures of brimstone and treacle. Another class of the people that are always gettin' licked ' strain .to secure readers by appealing to still baser passions than those of religious or racial animos.ty. From all that we have been able to learn, the neurotic, erotic, tommyrot-ic '- printed stuff which they inflict • upon the world sufficiently reveals the inability of the authors to achieve success along honorable and legitimate lines of literary work; On October 6, . at Christchurch, Mr. - Bishop, SU .fn fining sundry, booksellers and booksellers' assistants for vending .such pernicious -stuff, made a remark which may be aptly quoted in this connection : < The books were of varying .degrees of immorality, but -immorality was present in each, and it could not be gainsaid that if, the immorality were taken out nothing else :was left to induce any-rcader to give the books a • second thought.

* In giving his decision, Mr. Bishop quoted the following from a judgment by Chief Justice Cockburn : • A great many publications of high repute as literary- productions in this country hava tendency which is immodest and Immoral, and might have been subject matter for indictment. But it is not to be said that

because in many standard works th£rc are objectionable passages that therefore the law is not as alleged en the part of -this prosecution — namely, that obscene works are the subject matter of indictment. I think the test of obscenity is whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to. degrade and corrupt those whose minds are open to immoral influences, and as to how those into^ whose hands publications of this sort fall would regard this work. lam quite certain that it would suggest to the minds^ of the young" of either sex thoughts of a most impure and libidinous character.' We hardly think that the spasmodic prosacutions conducted here and there "will cleanse the shelves and counters of the booksellers or seriously, if at all, reduce the number of works of fiction of an erotic tendency that are b2ing imported at a great rate into New Zealand. Where poison is being poured into the human body, the physician's first principle of treatment is to stop the supply, then to deal with that which has penetrated into the system. A similar course oF action should be adopted in regard to the fiction of an erotic tendency which is poisoning the moral system of many of our young men and maidens. The Customs" should be a barrier to cut off the further supply of «he infecting medium. With a proper mandate, the police might then" be trusted to deal as effectively as circumstances would permit with the unclean or suggestive works which have found a lodging within the Dominion, on the shelves of the booksellers. From the legal point of view, those that have got into private hands must continue to work their mischief without resort. There is, unfortunately, a tendency in some quarters to regard 'business' as a things without relation to conscience or the moral law. The" better class of booksellers will, no doubt, take to heart the lesson of the recent prosecutions, acquaint themselves, as far as they can, with the character of the publications which they expose for sale, and exercise a proper boycott against immoral works and those having an immoral tendency?

We commend to their imitation the example of the largp Dublin bookselling and publishing firm of Messrs. Eason, who/ some twelve or fifteen years ago, taught a London publishing house a lesson that might, be taught to other publishing houses to-day with much benefit to youthful morals. In the Review of .Reviews, Mr. Stead had described as ' The Book of the Month,* and given lengthy extracts from, a novel antagonistic to Christian marriage. The Messrs. Eason owned at the time, besides their Dublin business, the bookstalls at the Irish railway stations. Their supplies of the Review of Reviews were very large. But they promptly returned to Mr. Stoad the whole of the big consignment containing the book review in question, and accompanied it with a letter in which they notified him that they declined to be the medium lor the circulation of such attacks on Christian marriage Mr. Stead remonstrated. 'But ihe only result of his remonstranc? was this : Mr. Charles Eason wrote him a letter in which he declared that a fresh perusal of the article in the Review of Reviews served only to convince the firm more fully as to its pernicious influence. 'I do not doubt,' wrote Mr. Eason, ' that the topic of Free Love engages the attention of the corrupt Londoner. There are plenty of such persons who are only too glad to get the sanction of writers for the maintenance and practice of their evil thoughts, but the purest and best lives in all parts of the field of Christian philanthropy will mourn the publicity you have given to this evil book. It is not even improbable that the peiusal . . . may determine the action of souls to their spiritual ruin ' Such an example deserves the flattery of extended imitation.