DISGRACEFUL CONDUCT OF CHRISTCHURCH POLICE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8685, 23 January 1890, Page 2

DISGRACEFUL CONDUCT OF CHRISTCHURCH POLICE.

Mr Stephkn Powell, a bookseller in Ghrietchurch, thus writes to the Lyttelton Times respecting the charge brought against him of selling obscene literature. He says :—": — " Having been arraigned before the Courts on a criminal charge of disseminating obscene literature, to which on the advice of my counsel I pleaded guilty .in order to avoid the enormous cost of defending myself in the Supreme Court, which I should have had to pay, no matter how the case went, it is only fair to myself that an explanation should be thoroughly pirculated. From the very nature of my calling as a bookseller such a charge might,' if not properly controverted, do serious damage to my business, but while there is such an innate feeling of fair-play inherent in most Englishmen which will ever cause them to rally round anyone who has been wrongfully trampled on, I know I shall not appeal in vain for the sympathy of my fellow Colonists. I may say at once that I have no obnoxious literature in my establishment whatsoever, and have always tried to hold aloof from anything of a senßntional or unorthodox character. The foundation for the charge made against me *was, that a tenant of a property I have when going away Home some years ago, left behind him some few little odds and ends, amongst which was a book in the French language, which he said he would give me. The book lay since then unexposed at the back of my shop till a fortnight ago, when a man came in and enquired had I any good novels, I replied " ( ertainly." He then said " Had I any of Zola's ?" I replied " Zola's novels ! I Avould not sell one of them if you gave me fifty pounds for it ; do you not know that they are not allowed to be sold now, and that I should be no party to any breach of the law ; hut that I had an old book in the French language > a collection of essays, which I did not suppose there would be any harm in selling him, and that he could have it at a reduction to get it out of my way." The man agreed to buy, and paid 3s 6d for it, a shilling under the proper price. That man was a detective, and in a few days I received a summons to answer a charge of circulating indecent literature. The book was in a language of which beyond the mere rudiments I am ignorant. Thus it will be seen that this solitary instance of selling a book, the contents of which were unknown to me, but which I was actually pressed and incited by the detective to sell to him, has been made the basis of a senseless, heartless prosecution, which, but for the discriminating powers of a generous public, might have gone a long way to effect my moral and financial ruin. Possibly I might not have taken the trouble to indite this letter but for my having received a vivid impression how such a charge would be viewed by bomo feminine ininds, from the fact of one lady having opunly declared in my hearing: that she trusted all the delinquents would get at least ton years, while another, [also of the same se\, declared not less than a sentence of three years, to her mind, would meet the case, adding, after a eoleinn, pause, that they ought to be burnt, but whether she meant the bookaor the booksellora was not quite