INDECENT LITERATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16483, 8 March 1917, Page 8

INDECENT LITERATURE.

» TWO TRANSLATED NOVELS. [BY TELEGRAPn.—-OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON. Wednesday. A.v important judgment dealing with the question as to what constitutes indecent literature was delivered in the Magistrate's Court to-day by Mr. S. E. McCarthy, S.M. The case, which was j heard some considerable time ago, was I that in which David Armstrong was I charged on two informations with selling indecent documents on a railway train, Ihe documents in question were novels entitled " A Spa Love Affair" and 'Stolen Sweets." The magistrate said I that in the case of each information the document alleged to have been sold was in English translation of a novel by a standard French author. " Stolen Sweets" was by de Kock, and "A Spa Love Affair" by Guy de Maupassant. His Worship, at some length, discussed the- dangers of such literature, and quoted judgments as to what is the test of obscenity. To the student or literary connoisseur, he said, tho books under review might be instructive, even inspiring. It must not, however, be overlooked that the mass of people who read them lid so not for their literary charm, lot for the lessons they professed to enforce, but for the filth they contained. It was this class of persons that' the legislation was intended to protect. His Worship had no hesitation in finding ihat those obscene books, kept as they .vere by the defendant for indiscriminate sale, wero indecent documents within the meaning of tho Act. The defendant was jonvicted on one information and fined filO, with costs 7s. On the other information he was convicted and discharged.