Faksimile

Text

30
box 4/11
asanovas Heinfahrt

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Bros., 192 App. Div. 816). In that case the pub¬
lication in question was a book entitled Made¬
leine', It was alleged to be an autobiography by
an anonymous author of a public prostitute. The
Appellate Division, holding the book not violative
of Section 1141, did so, although it declared the
book served ne useful purpose and taught no moral
lesson. The court speaking through Justice Smith,
said:“ can see no useful purpose in the publica¬
tion of the book, I cannot agree that it has any
moral lesson to teach.)
I hare read seith sedulous care“Casanord’s
Homecoming'“ Women in Love' and a“ Young
Girl’s Diary'. Folloring thetest laid doin bythe
cases in this state, both as to manner of judhing
publications und as to the meaning of the statute, I
do not sind angthing in these books ichich may be
considered obscene, leied, lascirious, filthy, indecent
or disgusting. On the contrary, I find that each of
them is d distinct contribution to the literature of
the present day. Euch of the books deals with one
or dnother of the phuses of present thought. They
are not wbritten in a manner that would incite im¬
pure imagination und lustful desire in the reader of
ordinarg intelligence.
Pornographie tides should be stemmed, but dis¬
tinction must be drawn between that which is
merely obsence and that which the higher courts'
tests allow and sanction. It has been said, with
some justice, that the policy of pouncing upon
books too frank for contemporary taste, without re¬
gard to the motive or purpose for which they were
written, or the use to which they are to be put, is
objectionable and should be curbed. As the emi¬
nent publisher, Mr. Henry Holt, in a letter in the
New York Times, on May 30, 1922, well says: “The
family requires that the sexual passion be kept
within limits. Within those limits, the rousing of