CLEAN LITERATURE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13683, 27 August 1908, Page 4

CLEAN LITERATURE.

A-very real danger to the community is commeuled upon by the writer of a letter appearing in this issue. The. flipping which ho has enclosed for our perusal is only a wimple of (he undesirable, .literature which everybody even moderately familiar with what is on knows: to bo widely circulated in Ne.w Zealand, and its .influence must be anything but beneficial to those who road it. It; i*; of course, a, difficult thins to establish a censorship of what shall, or shall not, be published, but the necessity for.'protec ting a section of the community against its .own depraved tastes has been recognised by the authority vested' in judges of the Supreme Court to prohibit the publication, of evidence in cases where. they consider isnoh a courso advisable in the interests of public. morality. ,It seems to be necca'aiy that magistrates should be given the' same power, if they do not already, possess it. \\ T e limagino tha'J the lower Coiiri.s are unable to issue such a prohibition, nv, else the type of paper mentioned by our correspondent would be robbed of much of its power for evil. The subject is one that ought to be -, brought under the. notice of ; Parliament, as has been done with a much le<is dangerous class of news in tho South, Australian Assembly. ' Reports of boxing contests, (however realistic they may be, can never, b© so destructive of morality as the. accounts of. many of the court proceedings which form tb.6" stock-im

DG