QUESTIONABLE PICTURES.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 4656, 9 October 1913, Page 5

QUESTIONABLE PICTURES.

HARMFUL TO THE YOUNG. INVESTIGATION IN VICTORIA. A CENSORSHIP NECESSARY. Electric Telegraph—Press Association Copy right (Received this day at 9.10 a.m.) Melbourne, This Day. The police conducted an inqury into the effects of picture shows upon young people. The superintendent, in forwarding the reports, recommends the censorship of pictures, and asks if the section of the Theatres Act relating to decorum could be enforced. The consensus of opinion among the officers is that censorship is necessary. Though no exception to many films could be taken, others representing dancing, coarse, suggestive clandestine love scenes, sensational crimes, "Deadwood Dick” and bushranging scenes undoubtedly produced a harmful effect upon the minds of the young. Some of the officers state that the extinguishing of the lights while the pictures are in progress is responsible for the indulgence in a good deal of indecency. The Premier, after a perusal of the reports, is of the opinion that it is advisable that pictures depicting criminal phases of life should be lessened. A slight amendment of the Theatres Act, he says, is probably all that is needed. He declares that the reports do not disclose any indecency.