PICTURE POSTERS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 86, 12 April 1927, Page 6

PICTURE POSTERS

■ A correspondent, "Modern," q'viotcl'ii I statement by "Social Server", on Bth April j as > follows:— "Unfortunately the law does not provide against the exhibition of nudeness, bel'it'over so coarse ; and abominable. The police areitho arbiters in the matter, but can do nothing Whjlo'the law; remains as it is." "Modern" asks if this js s cqrrect and i£ the police examined the poster previously complained of. The; answer-: is contained in it statement published in "The! Post" on Gth April. "As the law. now stands, an objectionable or indecent poster can only be the subject of a prosecution if it comes under the Indecent I'ublication» Aot. 'A nude figure in itself is iiot necessarily indecent/ the Commissioner of the Police points out. 'There must be, as the Judges have held, some special circumstance of aggravation to make a picture indecent: thero must be suggestion.' AOpostef'..which exhibits a portion of that part:o£-ufllm which has been esciaed by the censor. does not necessarily come under :-the; Act: 'The Police,' added the Commissioner, 'ai'e quite alive to the position, and the posters recently condemned in a letter to the' Press are now ! being considered. But until new regulations aro made, ■- as foreshadowed by the amendment made "last year to the Film Censorship Act, we cannot take, any proceedings except tinder tho. Indecent Publi- \ cations Act, however much we may per-* Bonally feel inclined to do so,'" . "Hard Toiler" holds that somo postcra border on indecency, but he ngroeu with a statement made recently that "in the leading business places of this city are to be seen window displays even mbro sugUeutivo than picture posters." "Surely" suggests "Hard Toiler," "the shopkeepers could display tho wax figures in a showroom inside the buildinc and spare tho feelings of thousands oil decent-minded women of Wellington. . . I understand it is a common occurrence for menfolk ■to^ ridicule and discuss these displays within hearing of decent women, I am not a wowser, but what have the church leaders to say about ii matter of this kind?"