Heimfahrt
Casanovas
30 ee e e en e e e etete
box 4/11
24
The criterion laid down by the courts in this
state, in determining whether a book is prohibited
by Section 1141 is whether a reading of the book, as
a whole, by a normal person, would excite him to
lustful and lecherous desires. In the leading case
on the subject, People v. Muller (supra), the Court
of Appeals said:
It is to be observed that the statute dees not
undertake to define obscene or indecent pie¬
tures or publications. But the words as used
* * *
in the statute are themselves descriptive.
It is a false delicacy or mere prudery which
would condemn and banish from sight all such
objects as obscene simply on account of their
nudity. If the test of obscenity or indecency
in a picture or statue is its capability of sug¬
gesting impure thoughts, then indeed all such
representations might be considered as inde¬
cent or obscene. The presence of a woman of
the purest character and of the most modest
behavior and bearing may suggest to a prurient
imagination images of lust and excite impure
desires, and so may a picture or statue not in
fact indecent or obscene. Wethink it
would also be a proper test of obscenity in a
painting or statue whether the motive of the
painting or statue, so to speak, as indicated
by it, is pure or impure, whether it is natu¬
rally calculated to excite in a spectator impure
imaginations, and whether the other incidents
and qualities, however attractive, were merely
accessory to this as the primary or main pur¬
poses of the representation.?
The standards thus set up by the court for the
mensure of decency or obscenity of publications
have been later followed and stated in succinct
form in People v. Eastman (188 N. Y. 478). Judge
Cullen writes as follows:
From the context of the statute it is appar¬
ent that it is directed against lewd, lascivions