INDECENCY IN PUBLICATIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 150, 26 June 1937, Page 8

INDECENCY IN PUBLICATIONS.

In a • prosecution in Wellington the magistrate convicted a bookseller who sold an illustrated magazine which reproduced photographs of nude women. As to the decency or indecency of such publications the law (which sometimes, and probably in this matter, no longer adequately reflects public opinion) makes the magistrate the judge, and while the law remains unchanged the magistrates must make their decisions on the I cases brought before them. But it is opportune to remark that the way in which (he law is set in motion in such cases is capricious and inconsistent. It is capricious ' in that photographs comparable with that to which a Wellington policeman took exception are published from time to time, and in some journals regularly, with impunity. It is inconsistent in that there have been, and continue to be, on sale in this country journals whose well-displayed vulgarity is a continual ! offence. Technically they may not be "indecent" j within the meaning of the law (although no attempt seems to have been made to test the matter), but the technical difference between them and "nudes" is usually some scraps of I clothing so arranged, or disarranged, as to ; make the maximum lascivious appeal. If the ' law has nothing to say about these, it is time , to amend the law. i