SALE OF OBSCENE BOOKS, &c., PREVENTION BILL.—COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 19 August 1857)

§ MR. ROEBUCK
said, he would beg to ask for information as to the intentions of the hon. Member for Devonport (Sir E. Perry) with regard to this Bill, as the course determined on would to a great extent 1863 influence his opposition to the Bill. He should oppose the further progress of the Bill if clauses were not introduced making an overt act preliminary to the issuing of a, warrant, and giving power of appeal from the decisions of the magistrates.

§ SIR ERSKINE PERRY
said, he would adopt the suggestion that two justices should have the power of issuing a warrant under the Act, and that two justices should decide the case instead of one. He would also accept the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets, making some overt act an essential preliminary to the institution of proceedings, and he would consent to an appeal to the Quarter Sessions being given.

§ MR. JAMES WHITE
^* said, he was favourable to the principles of this Bill, and he was sure the Committee would concur in approving any proper measure, having for its object the suppression of the sale of publications diffusing such moral poison. This almost unanimous feeling of the Committee would render it the more necessary that, in a laudable zeal for a good object, they should be careful not to over-step the limits of a wise discretion and inflict a signal wrong on innocent individuals. So whilst admitting that immense mischief might result from the present unrestrained sale of obscene publications, yet it must be the care of the Committee that their remedy for an acknowledged ill should not be worse than the disease. Hence he ventured to add that this species of legislation was one in which Parliament ought not to indulge without the greatest caution. As this Bill came down from the Lords—on a random information, before a single country magistrate a warrant might be issued to a policeman, who thereby would be empowered (as in despotic states) to make domiciliary visits, that is, to forcibly enter any house, breaking open doors, and forcing open desks and drawers, rifling any cabinet or escritoire, indeed, ransacking one's most private documents or papers, and, moreover, destroying, without appeal, any pictures, print or book, which might be deemed obscene. Since he came into the House, he (Mr. White) was glad to be informed that the Secretary of State for the Home Department would, on a later occasion, make such Amendments in the Bill as would, perhaps, remove its most obnoxious features. This was absolutely required; for to pass the Bill in its present shape it would be imperatively necessary to insert 1864 an interpretation clause, or pass a special law to first define what was obscene. He would beg to remind the Committee that there were many truly pious and conscientious persons who deemed all representations of the nude or undraped human form as obscene; and moreover, held that, except when confined to art purposes and studies, such representations were decidedly unfavourable to public morals. Some hon. Members, it would seem, did not agree with him in this opinion. He had in his mind an instance strongly corroborative of what he had before said. In the United States there was a law which decreed the destruction of any obscene publication which might be imported thither. It happened, curiously enough, not long ago, that an American traveller, returning home from Italy, brought with him a copy of that well, known work, describing, with figures, the principal statues, paintings, &c., of the Royal Museum at Naples. The name of this work is Museo Borbonico Reale; its value some £30 or £40; and we have it in the library attached to the House. Now, this very work was, by the Collector of the Customs at New York, deemed obscene; and was then and there ruthlessly destroyed. Since the introduction of the Bill under discussion, he had taken the pains to again look over this work in their library, and he would put it to any hon. Member conversant with its contents, whether such a work (published under Royal authority), could be called obscene; except by one of that class of persons who held the extreme opinions he had before intimated, as to the mischievous effect of all representations of the nude, whether in pictures, statues, &c. Indeed, such scruples, albeit conscientious, were shown to exist in high places even, as was evidenced in the memorable Crystal Palace controversy. Further, to illustrate the difficult and delicate ground they were treading on, he would mention that it was whispered out of doors, that in the event of the present Bill becoming law, it was the intention of certain persons to publish selections from the literary works of the noble and learned Lord (Lord Campbell) who introduced this Bill into the other House, and, moreover, cause them to be made subject to the effects of this new statute. He was not sufficiently acquainted with the writings of the Lord Chief Justice, nor could he say whether any of them would be amenable under the proposed law. It was some years since he had read the Lives of the Lord Chancellors; and the learned Lord's more 1865 recent work, the Lives of the Chief Justices, he had, as yet only glanced over, so he must leave to hon. and learned Members better acquainted with the lucubrations of the noble author to decide the question. He had said enough; and he was sure the Committee would not be slow to recognise (and he trusted would remedy) the practical difficulties in the enforcement of a law, to the scone and principle of which he was, as he had before said, entirely favourable.

§ THE LORD ADVOCATE
said, it had been supposed that he was averse to the application of the principle of this Bill to Scotland; but the fact was, that the common law of Scotland already accomplished there what the Bill contemplated.

§ MR. AYRTON
said, he wished to propose an Amendment providing that two householders should be required as security in the case of an information. As the Bill at present stood any unknown person might lay an information against a tradesman's house, which upon that information might be broken open, and his stock in trade ransacked. Such person would have no redress if the information had been laid maliciously.

§ SIR ERSKINE PERRY
said, it was not his intention to press the Amendment of which he had given notice, namely, in 1.14, after the word 'exhibition' to insert the words 'for gain.'

§ MR. AYRTON
said, he proposed to do so for the hon. Member.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
said, that the exemption was important, as he had no faith in the merciful construction of the Act by magistrates. There was no guarantee that advantage would not be taken of the Bill to effect other objects than were contemplated by it. In justification of a similar statement which he had made last Wednesday, and which the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. S. FitzGerald) said was a libel on the magistracy of England, he begged to read a letter from Lord Brougham, in which his Lordship said,— In case any one disputes the possibility of a magistrate using an Act made for one purpose to accomplish another, you may remember that in 1841 I presented a petition from some poor men who were imprisoned for nonpayment of what is called Queen Elizabeth's shilling. They were brought before a justice for poaching, and from some informality could not be convicted. So the worthy magistrate asked if they had been at church last Sunday. It appeared they had not been to church for four Sundays, so forthwith they were fined 4s. and the costs, and in default were committed. Upon the petition being presented 1866 Lord Lyndhurst, who was then Chancellor, obtained their release, and I doubt if the justice ought to have been left in the commission.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, the only objection the Government had to the words being introduced was that prints might be exhibited in a shop window to induce people to go into the shop to purchase, and a question might arise whether that were an exhibition for gain. He had consulted a high authority on the subject, who was of opinion that such an exhibition would be for gain, and therefore the words might be introduced.

MR. CLIFFORD
said, it was essential that they should be careful in the powers they gave to magistrates. He knew a gentleman who publicly stated in Exeter-hall that he had purchased for a large sum an engraving of a picture of Correggio, and had immediately made an auto da fe of it. Of course people might say in that case a fool and his money were soon parted; but that gentleman was one who was very likely to rise to the position of a stipendiary magistrate, and in that position he might run a muck against all works of art that did not square with his ideas of morality.