AMERICAN MAGAZINES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 9

AMERICAN MAGAZINES

PUBLIC OPINION CHANGES NOT MID-VICTORIAN NOW [ Per Tress Association. ) AUCKLAND, June 12. A plea that public opinion had changed considerably since the midVictorian era was made >1 Air Kindlay when appearing on behaif of a city bookseller, W. P. G. Ladd, who was charged in the Alagistrate’s Court with selling indecent documents. Ihe vharges referred to the covers of two American magazines which had been sold to a detective. Air Finlay said that sales of magazines of the type referred to totalled £l5OO a week. Pages containing certain types of advertisements were removed'bv the Custom- Dcr"’tment. and the fact that the magazines received some sori; of censorship misled wholesalers and retailers. That, however. w:.s rot ar excuse if th? publications were hold to be indecent. Tic quoted a case in 1917 in which Mr Justice Cooper held that the well known picture, “The Sleeping Beauty,” exhibited in a shoo window, w ! i« indecent. His Honour had held that anything which tended to deprave or corrunt was indecent. That was the oniv authoritative case in the Dominion However, the standard of public opinion public ■enlightenment and public morals had great!”- changed, since what wa« regarded with horror bv mi l-Vietnrian« was not so regarded to day. There was noth’ng salacious in the magazines, submitted counsel, and from a commonsense view thev were no* indecent ; within the meaning of the V-t. The magistrate, Air McKean, re* served his decision.