11. Reigen
box 19/1
21
by Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, the opinion of one
of the greatest jurists of those days, is expressed by
Sir J. F. Stephen, who, writing in the year 1884,
regarding the opinion of Lord Coleridge in the
Bradlaugh case, stated that:
*A large part of the most serions and most
important literature of the day is illegal that,
far instance, every bookseller who sells, every¬
one who lends to his friend a copy of Comte’s
Positive Philosophy’ or a copy of Renan's Life
of Christ’ commits a crime punishable with fine
and imprisonment.“
I have cited these cases to show how, with the
advancement of progress, the public view point
changes and that the magistrate must take into
consideration the time and the condition of the
nation or city.
And within our own memory, as may recall the
reversal of public opinion in the United States. It
is only recently that the works of Emile Zola were
barred from our readers; works which are now on
the shelves of public libraries. In some of our com¬
munities, the poems of Walt Whitman, the novels
of Dreiser, H. G. Wells are suppressed. While in
other communities, Whitman is considered as the
pioneer of true American poetry. In Canada,
Feuchtwanger’s book“Power'’ was suppressed; in
New York, it is being performed on the stage and
has a free and substantial circulation.
Bertrand Russell, in his latest work, Marriage
and Morals' mentions that only when a nation has,
through excesses, exhausted its robust vigor, that it
resorts to asceticism and excessive morality. Wein
the United States, have not gone through ang such
period as the English went through during the
Restoration, and we believe that the morality and
the sturdy character of our people is just as sound
and hearty as it has been since this nation was
founded. We think that our people are anything
but licentions in their national character; nor, how¬
ever, do we believe that they are so unnsually
squeamish that they are subject to corrosion and
corruptibility to a higher extent than any other¬
box 19/1
21
by Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, the opinion of one
of the greatest jurists of those days, is expressed by
Sir J. F. Stephen, who, writing in the year 1884,
regarding the opinion of Lord Coleridge in the
Bradlaugh case, stated that:
*A large part of the most serions and most
important literature of the day is illegal that,
far instance, every bookseller who sells, every¬
one who lends to his friend a copy of Comte’s
Positive Philosophy’ or a copy of Renan's Life
of Christ’ commits a crime punishable with fine
and imprisonment.“
I have cited these cases to show how, with the
advancement of progress, the public view point
changes and that the magistrate must take into
consideration the time and the condition of the
nation or city.
And within our own memory, as may recall the
reversal of public opinion in the United States. It
is only recently that the works of Emile Zola were
barred from our readers; works which are now on
the shelves of public libraries. In some of our com¬
munities, the poems of Walt Whitman, the novels
of Dreiser, H. G. Wells are suppressed. While in
other communities, Whitman is considered as the
pioneer of true American poetry. In Canada,
Feuchtwanger’s book“Power'’ was suppressed; in
New York, it is being performed on the stage and
has a free and substantial circulation.
Bertrand Russell, in his latest work, Marriage
and Morals' mentions that only when a nation has,
through excesses, exhausted its robust vigor, that it
resorts to asceticism and excessive morality. Wein
the United States, have not gone through ang such
period as the English went through during the
Restoration, and we believe that the morality and
the sturdy character of our people is just as sound
and hearty as it has been since this nation was
founded. We think that our people are anything
but licentions in their national character; nor, how¬
ever, do we believe that they are so unnsually
squeamish that they are subject to corrosion and
corruptibility to a higher extent than any other¬