CORK—Doing Admirable Work

New Zealand Tablet, 24 December 1908, Page 35

CORK—Doing Admirable Work

A sentence of. imprisonment passed on a Cork bookseller m. June last by local magistrates^ for having exposed in his shop window postcards of ah indecent nature, has been upset on technical grounds by the King's Bench, consisting of the .Lord Chief Justice, Judge Madden, and d. adge Kenny. In an affidavit the ' accused": stated that since the conviction he had ascertained that four of the magistrates adjudicating were members of the Cork Young Men s Society, for which r Mr. John Long was the nominal prosecutor. Judge Madden remarked that every rightthinking magistrate, ought to-be a member of a society with^so good, an object;; . The Lord Chief Justice said that the Court held that the conviction was bad for uncertainty. It was to be remembered that throughout the case it was not for a moment suggested that these magistrates were actuated by conscious bias. His Lordship thought that a prosecution of this sort was most valuable, having for its r object.to put an end: to the demoralising indecency that exists in some places, and is .fostered and encouraged by the exhibition of these indecent cards. He thought that the loung Men's Society of Cork was to be greatly commended if they did initiate, this pros'ecution.