ALLEGED INDECENT COVERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 15 June 1936, Page 6

ALLEGED INDECENT COVERS

QN AMERICAN MAGAZINES PROSECUTION AT AUCKLAND (United Press Association) AUCKLAND, 12th June. A plea that public opinion had :hanged considerably since the Mid/ictorian era was made by Mr Finlay vhen appearing on behalf of a city jookseller, W. P. G. Ladd, who was Larged in the Magistrate’s Court with oiling indecent documents. The Larges referred to the covers of two American magazines which had been old to a detective. Mr Finlay said that sales of magaines of the type referred to totalled 2.1500 a week. Pages containing cerain types of advertisements were- renoved by the Customs Department, nd the fact that the magazines receiv:d some sort of censorship misled wholesalers and retailers. This, howver, was no excuse if the publications /ere held to be indecent. He quoted a ase in 1917 in which Mr Justice :ooper held that a well-known picture The Sleeping Beauty,” exhibited in a hop window, was indecent. His Honour had held that anything which tended to deprave or corrupt was indecent. That was the only authoritative case in the Dominion. However, the standard of public opinion, public enlightenment, and public morals had greatly changed since what was regarded with horror by Mid-Victorians was not so regarded to-day. There was nothing salacious in the magazines, submitted counsel, and from a commonsense view they were not indecent within the meaning of the Act. The Magistrate, Mr R. W. McKean, reserved his decision.