NOTE TO EDITORS. This, the secofid edition of this very instructive pTTmphlet, which might well be called an eye-opener, has been published for circulation among editors, to furnish them with facts and information that will enable them to speak “as one having authority ” upon the very important subject herein presented. Those who review it or make comments upon it will oblige by sending a copy of the paper containing notice to lhe secretary of the National Defense As- sociation, Dr. E.f). Foote, fr., No. 120 Lexington Avenue, New York City. Mention of the fact that the pamphlet can big-obtained of the secretary for » one dime will be regarded as an additional favor. NOTE TO EDITORS. This, the secofid edition of this very instructive pTTmphlet, which might well be called an eye-opener, has been published for circulation among editors, to furnish them with facts and information that will enable them to speak “as one having authority ” upon the very important subject herein presented. Those who review it or make comments upon it will oblige by sending a copy of the paper containing notice to lhe secretary of the National Defense As- sociation, Dr. E.f). Foote, fr., No. 120 Lexington Avenue, New York City. Mention of the fact that the pamphlet can big-obtained of the secretary for » one dime will be regarded as an additional favor. COMSTOCKISM WITH ITS IGNORANT CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS EXPOSED ! A FABLE OF THE SPIDER AND THE BEES, VERIFIED BY FACTS AND PRESS AND PULPIT COMMENTS WHICH SHOULD COMMAND THE Serious Attention of every American Citizen. COMPILED i C BY THE NEW YOKtf NATIONAL DEFENSE ASSOCT Ui/vit: NEW YOKK: 1879. AN INTRODUCTORY WORD. This little Brochure has been hastily prepared to meet an immediate need of something to awaken all fair- minded and liberty-loving people to the danger which menaces the liberty of the Press in a country in which heretofore it has been supposed to be permanently se- cure. We have no time to introduce original matter, nor is this course necessary as we have at hand more articles and paragraphs which have appeared from time to time in our journals, periodical literature and occasional pam- phlets than we can conveniently use. An ingeniously written Fable from the pen of Dr. E. B. Foote, Sr., and which originally appeared in the Health Monthly, will first be introduced, following which will be found fads and comments sufficient to show that all the wrongs depicted in the illustrated Fable are actually being in- flicted under the pretense of suppressing obscene literature. Price One Dime, the profits on the sale of which go into the Treasury of the National Defense Associ- ation. We should be pleased to receive orders for from one to one hundred copies from the friends of the cause everywhere. Orders and remittances may be sent to G. L. Henderson, No. 141 Eighth Street, New York. [From Dr. Foote's Health Monthly.] A Fable of the Spider and the Bees. In a delightful garden, surrounded with fruit- bearing trees and filled with gorgeous and fragrant flowers of endless variety, was a large apiary in- habited by fat, sleek, busy bees, bent upon filling their hives with the richest of honey that could be gathered from the sweet flowers growing in the garden. T. hese bees it should be understood were quite in the majority as compared with the other insects and were consequently the law givers of the insect community which inhabited the beautiful place. One dark night when all the other insects were stowed away in the leaves of the bushes and trees taking their nocturnal naps, a venomous spider bearing on his broad, dark back a growth of dirty white down, forming for all the world hiero- glyphics which could be clearly interpreted as the letters A and C, crept stealthily up to the great central hive and sought to form an alliance with these rich and powerful insects. He begged their permission to spread a large web across the garden saying that the moths that entered their hives and devoured their honey came from a species of 4 FABLE OF THE SPIDER AND THE BEES. moths that had wings, and if he were permitted to weave his web he would catch all these moth-mil- lers, and the Hessian-flies that destroyed the wheat, and all other predatory winged insects. Notwith- THE BEAUTIFUL GAEDEN. standing the lateness of the hour the bees in the great central hive were buzzing as lively as at noonday, having under consideration some two or three hundred important measures for the pretended protection and welfare of the denizens of the gar- den. With a moment’s pause, however, they were captured by the stratagem of the spider and gave their high official assent to his mercenary applica- tion. When daylight came an expansive web fastened to a tree on one side of the garden and attached to a shed on the other, and extending THE EXPANSIVE WEB. 5 from the very tops of the trees away down to the ground itself, was found to have been ingeniously spun. It looked as if even the bees could not fly through the air without becoming entangled in its meshes, and some of the influential bees and other well-fed insects who were popular with the insect THE EXPANSIVE WEB. 6 tribes sought the spider and expostulated with him for making his web so large and its meshes so fine. But the spider, lifting his head from a struggling butterfly that was writhing in his grasp, assured FABLE OF THE SPIDER AND THE BEES. THE OPULENT INSECT WHICH WAS LET OUT OF THE WEB. A complaint was entered against the President of the Society for the Suppression of Vice for sending through the mails a pam- phlet which recommended Vaseline for purposes pronounced criminal by his Society. The pamphlet has been withdrawn, but no indictment was found against the guilty party. them that the large and popular insects which should become entangled would be liberated, and that no harm would occur to them, a pledge which shortly after was shown to be faithfully kept when an opulent insect which had presided with interest THE VENOMOUS SPIDER. 7 over the entire work of the spider, and which through alleged ignorance became entangled there- in, was speedily relieved. The spider meanwhile was catching and sucking the blood of some of the most valuable insects of the garden—those which Prof. Gray in his botanical essays informs us are useful in fertilizing the blossoms and in making the AND HERE IS THAT VENOMOUS SPIDER, trees and flowers fruitful. Finally the indignant insects of the garden gathered together at the great central hive in the apiary—assembled 70.000 strong all hard-working and intelligent insects— to ask that the web be broken down and that the garden be enjoyed by all of them. But the wary spider, with outspread legs and gleaming eyes in the centre of his great transparent web beheld the movements of the insects and quickly followed 8 them. lie showed to the wise bees of the central hive how many of the bee-moihs, the Hessian-flies and other troublesome insects he had caught in his web and how much he had done to rid the gar- FABLE OF THE SPIDER AND TIIE BEES. THE PETITIONS TO THE CENTRAL HIVE. In the winter of 1877-78 a monster petition containing nearly or quite 70.000 signa'ures was presented to Congress by Gen. BenJ. F. Butler and Senator Teller for the repeal or modification of the Comstock laws, but the “ Agent” visited the Congressional Com- mittee, accompanied by the President of the Society for the Sup- pression of Vice, and the Committee reported adversely. den of these mischievous creaTires. Hearing this, and ignoring the valuable work of his innocent THE QUESTION IN COURT. 9 victims, the bees concluded not to disturb the spi- der and his web. At last a hive of bumble-bees who were supposed to have the wisdom and justice of an impartial tribunal were supplicated, and THE QUESTION REFERRED TO THE SUPREME COURT. after the bumble-bees before whom all complicated grievances were brought examined the whole ques- tion they said that a web could not be justly spun across the great free air if it prevented the free- dom of circulation of the insects through the gar- 10 FABLE OF THE SPIDER AND THE BEES. den. But after examining the matter in all its bearings with their big eyes and still bigger heads, they found that the web did not do this, for, said they, the insects who feel aggrieved can creep along the fences or on the grounds of the garden, or they can go outside of it, and that conse- quently the freedom of the garden was not in the least degree restrained !*—a decision which disregarded the fact that the web was indeed drawn over the ground and fences as well as across the garden and all around it! The spider therefore continued to catch all the butterflies with beautiful wings, harmless white-souled millers and hard-working insects which had heretofore been flying from flower to flower and fulfilling their mis- sion, while the large and powerful bees flew through and through the web with impunity in col- lecting the honey with which to fill their hives from the fragrant and many-colored flowers of the garden. # A test case having been carried to the Supreme Court oftho IT. S. in the Spring of 1878, it was decided that regulations against the transportation through the IT. S. mails could not be so enforced as to “ interfere in any manner ” with the freedom of .the press, because “liberty of circulating is essential to that freedom Therefore when such matter is excluded from the mails “this high court says fts transmission in any other way cannot be for- bidden by Congress !” That the mail laws can be made to ex- clude printed matter the circulation of which cannot be “inter- fered with in ‘ any manner ’ ” sounds like Supreme nonsense from the Supreme Court. But so it decides. Facts which Illustrate. Facts which abundantly illustrate the truth of the foregoing Fable can be compressed into a brief statement of three notable cases relating to popu- lar physiology, free thought in theology, and radical expression in sociology. And let us first remind the reader that in the annual report of the Agent of the N. Y. Society for the Suppression of Vicej so called, in 1875, it was said that over thirty phy- sicians had been arrested for the publication of works not considered “scient fic,” and in his re- port for 1878, it is actually proposed to stamp out all free-thought literature. In 1876, the anniversary of a free nation’s birth, Edward B. Foote, M. D., of 120 Lexington Avenue’, New York, was arrested and subjected to a three day’s trial be- fore the U. S. Court, criminal branch, for having sent through the U. S. mail a copy of a pamphlet entitled, “ Words in Pearl for the Married ! ” With a jury which did not want to be considered inferior to anybody for purity and chastity, the Doctor was convicted and sen- tenced to pay a fine of $3500 ! The expenses of the trial altogether amounted to over $5000 ! Had it not been for the intercession of ex-governors, medical gentlemen of high position and clergymen, all of whom gave testimony A CASE IN THE FIELD OF PHYSIOLOGY. 12 to Dr. Foote’s “ excellence of character,” “ studious habits,” ‘‘pure life,” “keen intellect,” “honest purpose,” “genial humanitarianism,” (the quotations indicating the precise terms used) the Doctor would have undoubtedly been consigned to a felon’s cell! And for what? Simply for putting in print some twenty questions almost daily asked of him by honest enquirers after knowledge, and append- ing the most rational answers thereto—the whole consli. tuting a little pamphlet of 32 pages, which he was in the habit of mailing under letter postage and in sealed en- velope to those asking for such information ! One medical gentleman, a leading professor in one of the medical col- leges of New York, wrote to Judge Benedict, before whom the case was tried, that “ Physicians generally agree that the pamphlet contains only rational answers to questions usually asked by married men of their medical advisers.” It was not charged nor was it true that Dr. Foote had cir. culated this pamphlet broad-cast in the thoroughfares or in other ways forced it upon the attention of unwilling read- ers. We quote this case as a representative one because Dr. Foote is widely known as a popularizer and original writer of physiological literature, his “ Medical Common Sense ” having sold to the extent of over 250.000 copies- his “ Plain Home Talk,” in English and German, to over 150.000; his “Science in Story,” (which was considered by one popular clergyman go id enough for a Sunday- school library, into which he placed two sets) to nearly or quite 50.000 copies ; and various monographs on various physiological and health subjects to the extent of more than a million copies. And this was the author, backed by an intelligent, appreciative constituency in both Europe and America, who was fined $3500 under the “Comstock laws,” and at the instance of Comstock, for mailing an obscene book! When the result of the trial became known the IN THE FIELD OF PHYSIOLOGY. IN THE FIELD OF THEOLOGY. 13 Doctor was the recipient of letters from every quarter of the globe expressive of the writers’ indignation at the in- justice done to one whom John P. Jewett, the veteran pub- lisher, characterized in his letter to the Judge as “ a noble, generous-hearted, whole-souled man whose whole life has been spent, not in planning deeds of darkness, but in ef- forts to benefit mankind, and to leave the world better than he found it.” A CASE IN THE FIELD OF THEOLOGY. In 1877 Mr. D. M. Bennett, the editor of the Truth Seeker and publisher of various books criticising orthodox theology, was arrested on the charge of blasphemy and ob- scenity, by Anthony Comstock, who entered the office of the Truth Seeker accompanied by a United States Mar- shal, whose function one would suppose to be the protec- tion rather than the oppression of an American citizen guilty of nothing worse than printing his honest opinions upon theological and scientific subjects. The policy of mak- ing such attacks is sharply and justly criticised in the ex- tract from one of the Rev. Mr. Frothingham’s discourses, elsewhere presented, and need not be discussed in this place. The facts connected with the arrest were quickly communicated to Washington where such powerful influ- ences were brought to bear as to cause an order to be is- sued to discontinue the prosecut'on. And, still, twice again has Mr. Bennett been arrested upon a similar charge and under the sweeping provisions of the Com- stock laws. Mr. Bennett is in heart and purpose a hu- manitarian, with a constituency of not less than fifty thousand intelligent men and women, who are the constant readers of his publications. The Truth Seeker—a large 8 page paper—has a circulation of about ten thousand per week. His heart is so much in his work that from morn- 14 IN THE FIELD OF SOCIOLOGY. ing till late at night, unless interrupted by Comstock ar- rests, he may be found industriously plying the pen or otherwise preparing works for the press. Clearly, if he be a mistaken man, argument rather than abuse, truth rather than lies conveyed in decoy letters from professedly Christian sources, must be relied upon to turn him from his present convictions and labors. All who personally know the veteran liberal editor are impressed with his ro- bust intellect, his childlike simplicity and his perfect honesty of thought and purpose. He might be persecuted into a conspicuous martyr, but no amount of persecution and imprisonment would ever stamp on his honest brow the brand of a criminal. A CASE IN THE FIELD OF SOCIOLOGY. In 1878 Ezra II. Heywood, of P. inceton, Mass., editor of The Word and publisher of various works upon social questions, was actually sentenced to two years imprison- ment in Dedham Jail by Judge Clark, of the U. S. Cir- cuit Court. Mr. Heywood was arrested by Comstock vvithout the shadow of a soar rant, in a state which has been conspicuous for its championship of the rights of men, and was convicted, under the peculiar rulings of the judge, not- withstanding the opinion of Hon. Geo. F. PIoar, U. S. Senator, who wrote to Mr. Heywood before the trial that “The line of distinction between honest argument intend- ed to convince the people that their opinions, laws, or so- “ cial and domestic arrangements are wrong, however mis- “ taken or even injurious in their results such arguments “ may be, and writings designed to inflame evil passions “and minister to gross and depraved tastes, is a line which “I think our Massachusetts jurors would be pretty sure to “ see and to keep.” Here was a man who upon his trial was proved to sustain in the ulace where he lived an irre- FACTS WHICH ILLUSTRATE. 15 proaehable character, sent to jail to keep the company of actual criminals, for the offense of having written, printed and mailed his sincere opinions upon the institution of marriage, which but a few years ago was freely discussed in the columns of our daily papers by the late Mr. Greeley and Mr. James. However offensive Mr. Heywood’s views may be to our most conservative people, they have been broached by the leading thinkers of all times since the world has had a written history, and the condemned pam- phlet, as shown by Mr. Parker Pillsbury in a printed letter entitled “The Bible and Cupid’s Yokes Contrasted,” is far ]ess open to the charge of obscenity than the “ good book ” which ornaments the centre-tables and lies within the reach of children as well as adults in all Christian families. Therefore it is useless for the vice society to say that it was obscenity rather than Mr. Heywood’s opinions which sent this personally excellent man to prison. Mr Heywood in his youth stood shoulder to shoulder with Theodore Parker, Elizur Wright, Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips in championing the the cause of anti-slavery. His whole life has been devoted to duty as he understands it, and his photograph placed by the side of that of his ac- cuser quickly shows which is the MAN and which is morally the criminal! Since the foregoing was put in type Mr. Heywood has been pardoned by President Hayes. The petitions of 6000 people, the special petition of some of Boston’s best citizens and the efforts of our Defense Association which sent the eloquent and persuasive Mrs. Laura Kendrick to Washington to plead the cause of the prisoner have pre- vailed, and with the aid of the good sense and power of the President of the United States, a great wrong has been righted, after Mr. Heywood had suffered six month’s confinement in Dedham jail. A large and enthusiastic re- 16 FACTS WHICH ILLUSTRATE. ception was accorded him on his release at Paine Hall in Boston. ANOTHER CASE OR TWO. Now we will let these three cases representing the hard- ships of persons laboring in three different fields of thought suffice, although many more might be added, and turn to a few others of a peculiar character. Dr. Sara B. Chase, a lady of education and refinement, was rudely taken fiom her office and residence by Com- stock for having sold a syringe ! Her house was ransacked and her good name was besmeared with misrepresentations which her accuser managed to get into the columns of the daily press. The Grand Jury refused to indict; Comstock waited another month, and when a new jury was empan- elled tried again ; failing in this, he awaited another change and finally succeeded in getting two indictments against the persecuted lady. The Prosecuting Attorney in his indignation laid the facts before Judge Southerland, and a motion for a nolle prosequi was granted. The Times, 'Tribune and other papers-criticised Comstock’s course in terms anything but complimentary. Even in cases of actual obscenity it has been shown in many instances that the Agent of the Vice Society has in- duced his victims to commit a crime of which they otherwise would have been innocent; and prominent among these may be mentioned Mr. Chas. T. Blandin, who, while pur- suing a perfectly legitimate calling, was actually, by lies and friendly words, induced by Britton, Comstock’s lieu- tenant, to procure a photograph of some nude subject.— Blandin was pardoned by the Governor as soon as the real facts were revealed to him. FACTS WHICH ILLUSTBATE. 17 Comstock’s strange conduct in the house of prostitution in Greene street should not be overlooked in this connection. When it was first rumored about that the well known and supposed honest representative of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice had lent his assistance to a foul plot, instigated by a notorious criminal, for the purpose of casting discredit on a worthy public official, which plot involved the necessity of a fruitless raid upon a house of ill-repute, every decent minded person doubted the story, and declared it to be the fabrication of the ene- mies of the devout and dilligent agent. When, however, the facts were brought out in full in court, where the said agent appeared as witness for the prosecution, his apolo- gists were obliged to confess that they had not appreciated the real character of the man, and were astonished to learn the depths of depravity to which he could delve with a zeal and interest which would not have been mani- fested by one simply bent on the performance of duty ; for by the mouth of two eye-witnesses it was proved that self-appointed detectives remained one hour and twenty minutes in the presence of three women disporting in a state of nudity, when one minute should have been all sufficient for carrying out an honest purpose. Even the fifteen minutes acknowledged by Mr. Comstock himself shows a sad perversion of taste, or an innate depravity not becoming a member of a Christian Church, or the emi- nently respectable men who are credited with being his advisers. '1 heir agent has in the public press stated that none of his movements are made without previous consul- tation with the executive committee of his society and the obtaining of their assent. We prefer to assume that the agent made an exception in this case, rather than to be- A DISGUSTING AFFAIR. 18 THE GREENE STREET AFFAIR. lieve that the honorable gentlemen of the executive com- mittee were his accomplices in the nefarious proceeding related below. The plain facts are that Mr. Comstock with others paid $14.50 for the privilege of gazing for over an hour upon the nude forms of three misguided and un- fortunate women, in a disreputable house, and finally caused their arrest and prosecution. The following quotation from an account of the court proceedings, written by Prof. A. L. Rawson, an esteemed author of Biblical literature, may be depended upon as accurate—though we have taken the liberty to abridge it slightly for the pages of this little work. PROF. RAWSON’S REPORT OF TIIE GREENE STREET AFFAIR. Those persons who read my account of Anthony Com- stock’s arrest of three girls in Greene street, this city, in my speech at the Heywood Indignation Meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston, may have reflected that some corroboration was needed for such damaging statements. Such further proof has been derived from Mr. Comstock himself and the witnesses whom he summoned to assist in convicting the girls of unlawful conduct, which acts were the direct result of his request and the bribe in money paid by him. I was mistaken in one point, in that I said he deceived the court in obtaining a warrant before the acts were com- mitted. The fact is, he made the arrests without a war- rant, as he himself testified. The case was tried before Judge II. A. Gildersleeve and a jury, in the General Sessions, Part 2, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, Sept. 24th and 25th, 1878. In opening the case, Assistant District Attorney Her- ring said, among other things, that the Agent of the So- ciety for the Suppression of Vice has deemed it his duty PEOF. EAWSON’S EEPOET. 19 on several occasions to pass to other matters than that of preventing the spread of obscene literature, and that this case was one under that new head. He also said it was his duty to call attention to the fact that it is claimed that the crime charged was instigated by Mr. Comstock, and that for vindictive purposes, and he desired the jury to weigh the evidence carefully, and if they found that the prisoners originated the criminal acts, to bring in their veidict accordingly. But if they found that they were un- duly and improperly persuaded by offers of reward in money, and, being so urged, consented to do the acts re- quested of them, the jury is to determine who are the guilty parties. Anthony Comstock was the first witness called. After the usual preliminary items, he gave, in substance, the fol- lowing : He became acquainted with the house and its character about an hour before entering it, on the evening of June 14th last, and went in with three officers and two friends. Mrs. DeForrest was not in the house at the time, (9 o’clock), and he was shown into the back parlor. He inquired about the performance that he expected to see having made arrangements for something of the kind previously, and the money was paid by Mr. Comstock to the women. (The officer who was with Mr. Comstock at the time thinks $20 was the sum paid ; Comstock said $14.50.1 Mr. Comstock then detailed the incidents of the exhibition in such rude and plain language that the Judge ordered the officer to clear the court of all ladies who were not wit- nesses in the case. The language and style of Mr. Com- stock, as given in this particular case, does him large credit for having become very familiar with forbidden things.— However, he said, by way of saving appearances, that he could barely remain in the room, as witness of the offensive exhibition, fifteen or twenty minutes. Officer Sheldon, who 20 THE GREENE STREET AFFAIR. was in the same room, says Mr. Comstock was in there one hour and twenty minutes, as near as he can recollect. M r. Comstock’s memory might possibly have become affected by the peculiarities of the occasion, and hence the apparent contradiction between his and the officer’s statement. Mr. Britton was called, and said he is also employed by the same society that pays Mr. Comstock ($80.00 a week). He knew of the business on hand for the evening, for he had been busy with Mr. Comstock and Mr. Gurney for a week or two in “working up the ca«e.” Mr. Britton was anxious to sustain his chief, Comstock, and said that they were there to see “a regular exhibition.’’ (They both re- peated the word “ regular” many times, as John Brougham does in the case of the officer in the "regular army,” but not with the same happy effect.) Mr. fit it ton confirmed the statement of officer Sheldon as to Comstock's presence for an hour and a quarter or more in the exhibition room ! Officer Sheldon thought that Comstock ordered the wine for the party. Somebody brought the wine, and the party drank. He says he made the arrest by order of Comstock, and that he was acting under the orders of his superior, who had directed him to obey Mr. Comstock on that oc- casion. That was about all the evidence for the prosecution, and the Judge discharged the three girls, holding Mrs. De For- est only on the charge of keeping a disorderly house. The case was adjourned to the next day. Mr. Gurney was subpoenaed, but was not found. The defense did not call a witness. None were needed. On opening the case Mr. John Mott, counsel for the ac- cused, moved the Court to direct the jury to acquit on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the charge, and said, beside other things, that there had been no evidence offered that any criminal conduct was ever 21 witnessed in that house before this instance, and that the law was not designed to protect rogues in their unlawful intercourse with each other. In this case one rogue had ‘‘ put up a job,” and he and the complainant, Comstock, set on foot the very unlawful acts of which he complained. In reply to the argument for this motion the Assistant District Attorney, Mr. Herring, said that he felt it to be his duty to shield Mr. Comstock from certain apparent facts which seemed to have been devised to bring disgrace and odium on the Captain of the precinct in which this laid had been made. He said that Gurney is a notorious criminal, who has served several terms in state prisons, and that the Captain would not allow him to carry on business in his precinct, and he (Gurney) had sought out this Com- stock, and they together had tried this means of bringing disgrace and odium on the Captain’s head. It may be that Mr. Comstock was innocently trapped at the first, and this might have been shown if Gurney could have beer brought into court. But the man cannot be found. Then the Judge, in closing the case, said, besides many other things, that, in the absence of the statement just made by the District Attorney, he should have felt bound to submit the case to the jury. His honor said his court could not be used to fasten a stigma on the name of a worthy man, a captain of the po- lice, for the purpose of carrying out any man’s schemes of private vengeance. The Judge criticised the manner in which the prosecution had been conducted. He said that the roundsman of the precinct is not here, the police are not here, no one of the neighborhood is here to tell us of the character of the house, although it would have been very easy to have had any one or all of them here to tes- tify to their knowledge of its reputation. It is too bad that justice should be cheated in this affair, PROF. RAWSON’S REPORT. THE GREENE STREET AFFAIR. 22 for his honor said he had no doubt of the guilt of Mrs. De Forest in keeping a disorderly house, although the evidence is circumstantial. But the vilest have rights, and if guilty are entitled to be tried in a legitimate and fair manner without being the victims of fraud and deceit, and he would have puniShed the guilty if he could have done so without reflecting on the character of a worthy man and public officer. He then directed the jury to find a verdict of acquittal, which they did. For the sake of common humanity we may be glad that this conspiracy failed, and that the captain on one hand and the poor women on the other were protected by the court from the unscrupulous attacks of a hardened criminal who was thirsting for vengeance, and the Agent of the So- ciety for the Suppression of Vice, who, in this case at least, seemed quite ready to lend the dignity of his office for un- worthy and almost inhuman purposes. In view of this righteous termination of the conspiracy, I am still of the opinion that it would be well to amend the title to Anthony’s society so that it shall read “ The New York Society for the Manufacture and Suppression of Vice.” A. L. Rawson in the Truth Seeker. [.From the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Daily Times.] It must be admitted that the story, (referring to the Greene street affair) bears upon its face some evidence of untruth. It seems absurd to suppose that any man repre- senting a Christian cause could descend to such depths of infamy. And yet, when we remember the sort of hair-pin which Anthony Comstock is; when we call to mind ;ome of the equally despicable subterfuges which he has em- ployed in the past, it seems not altogether unreasonable to believe that he comd be guilty of the thing charged. Comments of the Press. Although the Press has been timid and time- serving in its treatment of Comstock and his ig- norant censorship, we have enough material at hand to fill more than one hundred pages with the indignant utterances of newspaper writers who have been appalled at the injustice inflicted under the laws instigated and used by Comstock. We will only spare room for a few extracts, enough to show that the Press is not dead but sleepeth. From tlie New York Daily JVorld.] Mr. Andrew J. Hope keeps a candy store on Fulton street, near Pearl. He is not only a confectioner but a patron of the arts. A few weeks ago he purchased from Mr. Wm. Schaus a finely executed and handsomely framed water-color copy of Hans Makart’s painting of “Charles the Fifth’s Entry into Antwerp.” The original, which is now on exhibition in the Art Gallery of the Paris Exposi- tion, has been much talked of by European critics and connoisseurs. It represents the King’s triumphal proces- sion through the streets of the ancient Flemish city, and in the foreground there are several figures of nude women, apparently representing heralds oi the royal coming. Mr. Hope’s copy was exhibited for several weeks in Mr. Schau’s shop window, and when he purchased it Mr. Hope placed ANTHONY COMSTOCK ON IIANS MAKART. 24 FROM THE NEW YORK WORLD. it in his window. There it remained up to last Thursday, when Mr. Anthony Comstock, of the Society for the Sup- pression of Vice, saw it. Mr. Comstock at once sought Mr. Hope and informed him that the picture was obscene, and that he would not permit it to be exhibited any longer.— Mr. Hope persisted, but in vain. Mr. Comstock declared that if the picture was not removed he would seize it nnd arrest its owner. Mr. Hope says that he did not care to have a conflict with so powerful a society as the one that Mr. Comstock claims to represent. He accordingly prom- ised that the objectionable painting should be exhibited no jnore, and he caused it to be covered with a placard with the following inscription : I purchased of William Schaus, of Broadway, the in- closed picture which he had on exhibition in his window, a water-color copy of Makart’s great historical painting of “Charles the Fifth’s Entry into Antwerp,’’ which is at present all the rage at the Exposition. Being the only copy which would reach this country before Christmas, I took pride in showing it to the public. A gentleman claiming to be the Society for the Pre- vention of Cruelty to Morality came into my store and peremptorily ordered it out of the window. A CARD TO THE PUBLIC. Tiie World also had an editorial upon the same subject, which we l ave abr dged: COMSTOCK VS. MAKART. It is eminently desirable either that the Society for the Suppression of Vice should get another agent in the place of Mr. Anthony Comstock, or that it should cease to clothe its agent with judicial funciions and require him to take counsel of some person of sense and discretion before *«-ther making or threatening seizure. COMMENTS OF THE PEESS. 25 It has been repeatedly charged upon this agent of the Society for the Suppression of Vice that he is not in the least scrupulous about the methods he employs to do even the legitimate and necessary work which falls to him, and that he is quite willing to entrap into an offense a person who otherwise might not commit an offense, for the pur- pose of procuring a conviction and making a show of ac- tivity. The Daily Graphic of the nth expressed the following opinion: If the public indignation does not now give a pause to Anthony Comstock’s trespasses beyond the pale of his au- thority, the galleries of the city may yet be stripped of their very choicest gems of art. The Nation of the 7th, in commenting upon what The World had to say upon the same subject, used this language: If this is true, the time has come for some public-spirited person to resist the Society for the Suppression of Vice, and jf possible, punish such uncalled-for interference with pri- vate rights. Makart’s picture is thirty feet long, and the figures in the extreme foreground are much larger than life ; those in the middle distance and full light are life size. It stands all across one of the entrances to the Aus- trian gallery, and an honor is paid to it which no other picture of all the thousands at the Champ-de-Mars this year has received : fixed seats are set before it at what is assumed to be the best distance. Now a small colored print of it is pronounced unfit for a New York shop window ! The Philadelphia Times, in making comments on the same subject, used this language : Mr. Anthony Comstock has been making an ass of him- 26 FROM THE NEW YORK GRAPHIC. self. We say this advisedly, because there is no reason to suppose that Mr. Comstock was made so by nature. He is a man with a hobby ; but like other men with hobbies, Mr. Comstock does not always use the best of judgment, and lately he has been bringing ridicule on his work by some very absurd and arbitrary proceedings. But in a matter of aesthetics Mr. Anthony Comstock is scarcely qualified to act as censor, and if his patrons and employers, the directors of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, wish their work to succeed, they would do well to suppress their agent a little. TIIE SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE. The New York Graphic sees both sides of the shield : “ While all good citizens desire a vigorous suppression of impure literature, the Society for the Suppression of Vice would do well to move cautiously in suppressing works which are merely expressions of opinion. Touch upon the right of free publication, and hundreds and thousands of people become interested at once upon the side of the accused. The prosecution and imprisonment of Heywood was, in this sense, seemingly a grave mistake. It has given him and his pamphlets a notoriety and his views a circulation which would otherwise never have been ob- tained. The trouble is, that when an organization is once formed the superintendents and agents are under a con- stant spur to call attention to themselves and their work, and after they have successfully attacked really objection- able publications they are very apt to proceed against per- sons who only hold objectionable opinions. Then, too, the methods by which Comstock gets his evidence are not such as commend themselves to public morality. Tempt- ing people to do wrong and then arresting them is not the kind of business any law-abiding community can counte- FEOM THE METHODIST. 27 nance. It inevitably leads to abuse. The Society for the Suppression of Vice would do well hereafter to be more discreet in the prosecution of cases which bring up the Ught of free discussion, for by straining the law they only the cause they have at heart.” Frotti the N. Y Methodist, of Feb 12, 1876. VILE PRINTS AND THE POST OFFICE. “Howto suppress obscene literature is a question be- fore the public. The circulation of filthy or demoralizing papers and books is one of the yast evils of the times ; and it offends our better feeling to know that the Govern- ment of the United States i-, through the mails, the agent for the distribution of this foul m itter. It is therefore proposed to arm the government with the power of search as a means of suppress'd!, and to relieve the government of its unwilling service in distributing such literature.— The evil is shocking, and the use of the post-office for such devil’s work a very painful fact. But the remedy is worse than the disease. The mads ought to be, and are, open to judicial examination ; vesting a discretionary power of scrutiny in public officers is quite another matter and of moit dangerou ■ tendency. The liber y of correspordence is fundamental, and has become a part of the freedom of the press. In taking charge of mail matter, the government cannot undertake to be in any sense responsible for what goes through the mails. Seducers, thieves and murderers use the mails to deceive, plot, and ruin. Every day, the government, ac- c rnding to the logic of some people, helps to corrupt women, break into banks, and take human life. For, mes- sages that p oduce these results are constantly received and delivered by postmasters. Any checks that are con- 28 A SIGN OF THE VILEST DESPOTISM. sistent with liberty we should earnestly favor, but we should not reason that the smallest responsibility attaches to the government for sins committed by the use of a free post-office. The power that is asked for is certain to be abused.— We remember when southern postmasters refused to de- li.er the Tribune to subscribers, on the ground that it was 'incendiary matter." Nobody needs to be told that, in any political campaign, any political party having con- trol of the post-offices would use its power to hinder the other|aity, that the sacredness of private letters would be subject to the needs of partisans and the whims of ig- norant or rabid postmasters. An inspected mail-bag is the sign of the vilest despotism. That thing became so vulgarly shameless in Italy that travelers were unblush- ingly told the office had not yet read their letters. * * The evil must be reached in other ways. Liberty has evils of its own, but it is worth a hundred fold more than the best despostism. The people who would like to sup- ] ress sin by main force believe that they would suppress only sin. Pius Ninth believed that he suppressed only sin while ruling the most vicious and ignorant population in the Italian Peninsula. Despotism may mean well in its sources; it becomes wicked and corrupt long be ore it reaches the masses under it. You must meet sin chiefly by moral and rel gious restraint; a little can be done by a free country through its laws, and that little we shall always fav< r. But we are not willing to sacrifice, 01 even to pi t in peril, a free correspondence and a tree press for any pur- pose whatever. Parents, teachers and ministers must cor- rect the tastes, correct the ignorance, and promote the pu- rity of lads and lasses. They cannot invent a machine to do heir work, or lighten it, or make it easy. It is a mighty task, a war in which there are no truces, a laboring day FROM .HALL’S JOURNAL OF HEALTH. 29 that never ends, a burden to be borne by each one of us while life lasts, to be borne by somebody so long as sin exists in the world. [From Hairs Journal of. Health, Dec., 1876, pp. 496-7.] FAMOUS THROUGH PERSECUTION. “ T)r. E. B. Foote, a very entertaining and popular writer, and a scientific gentleman, withal, has received one hundred thousand doll rs of advertising through the efforts of a Mr. Coms’ock, who complained that the Doctor was employing the U. S. mails for the conveyance of im- modest literature, against which offence a clumsy sort of a law exists. So the Doctor got fined, and subsequently publishe 1 a voluminous ac ount of his trial for the techni- cal offence. The absudityof the enactment was made clear, so far as it has been con-trued as having any refer- ence to medical works, and a few more cases of this sort would be quite likely to breed a good sized rebellion among medical writers and publishers. * * * “The D ctors Foote—father and son—publish a v ry able magazine for general reading, called Dr. Foote’s Health Monthly, and in this work the whole prosecu- t on and pe.secution business has been reported, together with hosts of letters from the public at large expressive of sympathy, and contributing money for the payment of the fine. This money is accepted and credited up to the sender on acco' nt of subscriptions, at one dollar a year, to The Health Monthly. “As for the character of Dr. Foote’s books, we can only say, that while they tell a good deal of naked truth in plain language, he must be a prurient prude indeed who is able to detect anything immodest in the expressions made use of. Abuses and errors are pointed out in "vigorous lan* 30 FROM THE POSITIVE THINKER. guage, but there is no indelicacy of utterance, and the mind which could thus construe it must be polluted irdetd.— As medical writers, we protest ag inst the law not less than against this last construction of it, and '■hall see to it that it be so modified by Congr. ss as to exclude medical men from its operation, since they necessarily have to I andle topics which the world has been taught to consider “ dtli- ca’e.” Corruptors of the morals of the young, who in est our cities and work secret pollut o i through obscene litera- ture and pictures among the inexperienced, should be swept from the earth as vi'e enem of mankind ; but we cannot long permit such misguided censorship of the pr ss or mails as is calculated to lessen scientific discussion, or keep thj world in ignorance of vital truth.” [From the Positive Thinker.] We have, from the first, deprecated the prominence given to this miserable obscenity question, believing that the evil has been exaggerated, and that its suppression, be it greater or less, might far better have been left to the vigilance of parents and teachers and to the municipal authorities, rather than to retain Congressional statutes on a subject where the boundary between what is obscene, either in language or representation, is so indistinct and indefinable that any attempt to fix it must not only be futile bu1 must necessarily lead to an abridgment of personal liberty and become a tool in the hands of bigoted an.i bad men in power to stifle opinions distasteful t ■ :hem, or to crush their enemies. But even were i not so, is it possible to frame any such statute that would not exclude from the mails the best part of the literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? If Mr. Abbot, of the Index, who THE OPINION OF A LIBERAL ORGAN. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 31 thinks that a law can be framed that will define where ob- scenity in language or representation begins and ends, a* d which cannot be perverted and made an instrument for the abridgment of personal liberty and of the freedom of the press, will take the pains to read the speeches of such dis- tinguished statesmen as Webster, Benton, Calhoun, Clay, Davis and others, when this subject was up for discussion in Congress in 1836, he will, we think, be convinced that it is an impossible task, and what such eminent legal minds confessed could not be done and ought not to be attempted, he should not think of trying. Just here is the weak point in Mr. Abbot’s argument for reform in the matter of the Comstock laws. He does not seem to discriminate between the powers conferred by the Constitution on the States and on Congress and those re- served to the people. By the power delegated to the State* it may, and ought to protect itself and its citizens against evils and crimes, and to do this, it is in its province to de- termine < n matters of morals, but no such power has be n conferred on Congress except in the District of Columbia and in the Territories, over which it is authorized to exer- cise both general and municipal power. Just so far as Congress attempts any such discrimination in matters of opinion or morals it is an UoUipation of j ower which should not be tolerated. [From Dr. Footes Health Monthly.] It is a fact known to all who have given attention to the subject that all the indecent books, pictures and ether de- vices which Mr. Comstock uses before legislative and Con- gressional committes were captured BEFORE the statutes now known as the Comstock laws were enacted. Now, if after WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 32 ONLY TWO ALTERNATIVES. having absolutely suppressed all of the really indecent things Mr. Comstock had taken hold of some legitimate business or profession which would have occupied a mod- erate share of his attention, and which would have yielded by the aid of a moderate salary from the Society for the Suppression of Vice a good living income, he might have lived a useful and honorable life, without meeting any se- rious opposition from any reputable quarter. But if he persists in the course which he is now pursuing either this country will cease to be a republic or Comstockism will be driven to the wall. It is plain that there are but these two alternatives. Either the institutions which were builded by our fathers will have to go down or the American In- quisition will. Whether the contest between these two is to be protracted, entailing much suffering upon those who are outspoken and who will not tamely submit to the ex- isting censorship, or to be short and decisive, is for the pub- lic at large to determine. Thanks to the hereditary quali- ties which have been handed down from the early colonists, who were disposed to submit to all sorts of privations and dangers rather than bear the yoke of tyranny, there is not a small band of resolute men and women who are willing to make their homes in the prison cells and bear temporarily the outrageous and unjust charge of being “ohscenists” rather than yield one jot or tittle of their rights as American citizens. It is often predicted that the agent of the Society for the Suppression of Vice will come to a tragic end. We hope not. That man should never be created into a mar- tyr. His destruction would be his martyrdom. The long and honored catalogue which has come down through the ages should never be stained by such a name. But we de- voutly hope that the strong common sense of the most en- lightened people on the face of the earth will grapple with the great “Wiiat (S it,” which has suddenly intruded itself in a nation of freemen, and put it down with such force that it never can again raise its impudent and ob- streperous head. If all of our readers, and we have thou- sands of them, would make even small contributions to our National Defense Association the unclean bird would soon have his wings so clipped that he could soar no higher than the ground where, and where only, the carrion which it is his function and delight to feast upon, can be found. COMMENTS OE THE PRESS. 33 HASTY LEGISLATION TO BE CHECKED. Senator Edmunds has pre-ented resolutions to the effect that neither Hou-e of Congre s shall sehd a bill to the other or concurrence on the last three days of tl? r session, and lhat none shall be sent to the President on the last day without a three-fourths vote in each House. We strongly uspect that these resolutions have been instiga- ted by the ill-advised and hasty legislation which charac- ters d the closing hou s of the 42n 1 Cong ess, when some two or th.ee hundred bills were rushed through a* random, and among them he Comstock statutes. If such resolu- tims had been adopted ire\iouslyto that Congress we might have bee spa>ed the disgrace of t' e infamous postal laws and the wrongs whi h have been perpetrated under ’ hem. The Springfield Republican says : “ The Presid nt has done justly n this release ” (s eaking of the pardon of Mr. Hey wood) “ for we must maintain the right of the citizen to freely maintain theor.es that are even subver- sive of society ; our corner stone is li er;y.” (frffjp* To pronounce the holding of certain ideas illegal an to make martyrs of people imld ng them is the most infalli le method of propagating them ever devised.— [The Daily World. 34 COMMENTS OF THE PRESS. Oliver Johnson, the veteran editor, formerly of the Anti-Slavery Standard, later of ihe New York Independent, later still of the New York Weekly Tribune, after hat of Beecher’s Christian Union, and at present the propr e or of one of the ablest journals issued out of New York,— The Orange (N. J.) Journal—in his paper oi May 25 h. 1878, said : 1 here are honest differences of opinion among mer upon some very important and delicate physiological q es- tions, and it is noc for Mr. Comstock to make himself a doctrinaire, to suppress by violence he right of speech and of printing upon such subjects. He must remember that it is possible for \ery good people to hold opinions contrary to his own, and contrary even to those generally held in the community, upon physiological subjects ; and i he would retain the good will of the community he should learn how to discriminate between the agents and abettors of impurity, and well-meaning people, however mista- ken, who are labtring, according, to their best light, to promote the public welfare. ADVICE TO COMSTOCK. The Boston Sunday Herald says Anthony Comstock is too pure, or too impure, to live in this world of tempta- tions. His last feat, orderirg a copy ol Hans Makart’s grea. pi' tt.re of Charles V in Antwerp from a store in New York, b.cause there were some nude figures in it, shows th - narrow spirit of the man. What a pleasant state of things would we have if he were able to carry out his ideas! Venus would be put in petticoats, and Narcis- sus would get fitted to a pair of pantaloons. Even Eve, mother of ihe race, could not be represented until after the fall. Mr. Comstock ought to be put into a dimly lighted ice-closet. The Pen, Pulpit and Platform, Under this head we will group, without any at- tempt at precise order, such pen, pulpit and plat- form utterances as may not have found appropri- ate place elsewhere. Many “orthodox” clergy- men have spoken their views in private letters, and soon, if “ the Agent” keeps on, we hope they will have the courage to come out from their ambus- cade and openly attack the arch enemy of American freedom. Many are already impressed with the fact that with a preponderance of sentiment in any community opposed to their cherished convictions, the same statutes might be used for suppressing the Scriptures. They are not unmindful of the possibility of the tables some day being turned, if this precedent be allowed to obtain a fixed foot- hold in our laws and usages. They cannot afford to be silent. Meanwhile we will quote those of liberal tendencies who have openly expressed them- selves. Here again we can but spare room for a few samples. And these will not appear until we present some clearly written arguments and com- ments upon the unconstitutionality of the so- called Comstock laws. We will open with a “little grape” from a gun thus far unanswered. 36 PEN, PULPIT AND PLATFORM. MR. T. B. WAKEMAN ON THE UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE COMSTOCK LAWS. No one can read the admirable address of Mr. T. B. Wakeman, before the great Indignation Me eting at Fan. euii Hall, in Aug., 1878, without being impressed with the entire unconstitutionality of what are called the Comstock Laws, notwithstanding the fact that they have been pro- nounced constitutional by the Supreme Court. We have room however for only the following brief extract. Those who would like to read the address entire can obtain it for only five cents per copy by addressing the President of the Defense Association, Prof. A. L. Rawsqn, No. 34 Bond street, New York. The small profit above cost will go nlo the treasury of the Association. It should be remembered that postal questions are far different in this country from what they are in England, where Parliament can do any.hing except, as it is said, make a man of a woman, or a woman of a man ; that is, physical impossibility is the only limit of Parliamentary power. There the power over the post-offices and people is comparatively unrestricted. But our general govern, ment has only the special powers granted in the Eighth Article of the Constitution and such implied powers as “ are necessary and proper to carry those special powers into efiect.” The simple and single word to “ e-tablish ” post-offices and post-roads was in no wise intended to grant to Con- gress the British ulterior power of using them after they were established for objects not committed to Congress at all, but specially reserved to the people of states, by amend- ments 9 and 10. That no such ulterior power was ever intended is clear from history. One of the great difficulties ME. WAKEMAN’S ADDEESS. 37 n procuring the adoption of the Constitution arose from ithe fear of these implied powers. Every cla se was go e over and over in the Convention that framed the Consti- tution, and in the Conventions of the several States, to dis- cover how these powers might be wrenched to destroy the liberties of the people. It is very s'gnificant that no one eyer then supposed that this power “ to establish post- offices and post-roads ” could be o’her than such as should be simply devoted to that end. Luther Martn and Patrick Henry, who went over every word to find objections, saw none in this clause, and the authors of the Federalist (in No. 42)make their only reference to the subject in these few words: “The power of establishing post-r ads must in every view be a harmless poiver, and may, perhaps, 1 y judicious management, become productive of great public conveniency. Nothing which tends to facilitate the inter- course between States can be deemed unworthy of the ub- lic care.” This plainly means that t e postal power must be always, and in every way, harmless since it was only for the public “conveniency” of facilitating in'ercour-e be- tween the States. Little did those patriots dream that a hundred yea s hencj a grant in every point of view so HARMLESS ” would grow by construction of an implied power into a terri le penal sta ute that has nothing to do with, the " conveniency ” of the post-office, or of the people, or with facilitating their intercourse, but which seeks to prevent and limit all these for the ulterior object of s iper- vis ng morality. Had the possibility of this ulterior power been suspected then, the Constitution would never have been ratified. Let any one who doubts it turn over the pages of Elliot’s debates on the Constitution (especially the Virginia convention), the Federalist, and the second volume of George Ticknor Curtis’ “ History of the Con- stitution.” 38 PEN, PULPIT AND PLATFORM. THE HON. ELIZUR WRIGHT FOR REPEAL. In the Boston Index of Dec. 27th, 1877, mav be found a st'rring article from tve Hon. Elizur Wright, of Bos- ton, an honored name which has been intima ely associated with the wa‘ch-word Arne i an liberty for fully a third of a ce tury : “I think,” says t' is truly great man,” Congress h s no occasion, and therefore no right, to legislate on the subject, except f r the Dis rict of Columbia and the Territories.— Moreover, I think its act touching the circulation of ob- scene publications through the mi Is is an outrageous vio- lation of the Constitution, incapable of any modifica ion w ich could make i either cons itutio al or safe. I wish to sign a p tition f r its total and immediate repeal even at the tisk of being classed with the vilest publicans and sin- ners, if anybody sees fit so to class me. Let men be punished for obscenity or treason, if they are guilty of either, but not for sending either through the mails. If it has come to that, that hese two crime , or any crimes, cannot be sup- pressed without inding the sacred privacy of the people’s correspondence, we had better abolish the post-offi e.” We wish we could find r om for this enti e article, but we can only spare space now for the foregoing and a p ir- tion of the concludi g paragraph, which is as f Hows : “ The simple truth is, that the Society for the Suppres- sion of Vice does not care a pin for the suppression of the clandestine and really vile i ook-trade ; but, taking advan- tage of the great elas icity of the adjective “obscene,’ they first make a raid upon he clandestine ti ade as a (over to their attack p n the science of human phy i< logy, in the interest of heir peculiar religion. Pretending and loudly bragging to have done the work of the police au- thorities beiter than they ever did it or could do it them. MR. PARTON’S LETTER. selves, they now come to their real work, 7chick is to sup- press science and cultivate ignorance and superstition among the people. The he nest and self-sacrificing men and wo- men who are laboring openl , e rn stly and intelligently to prevent socia corruption and keep men and women ou: of hell-upon-earth by i-struciing them in the laws of 1 fe and health, are poun ed upon as if they were pimps and harlots.” 39 MR. JAMES BARTON FOR REPEAL Newburyport, Mass., Sept. 29, 1878. My Dear Friend: I think those Comstock laws, as they are very properly called, ought to be totally repealed, and for these reasons ; 1. Because they are Comstock laws, and not the delib- erate judgment of Congress. 2. Because they are useless. The forbidden articles can still be sent everywhere by express. 3. Because it is not possible to put into human language a definition of the word obscene which shall let the Song of Solomon, Rabelais, Juvenal and Tom Jones pass, and keep out works intended and calculated to corrupt. 4. Because the control of the Government over the mails is obviously limited to what you well style “ postal reasons.” Dynamite may be excluded ; sealing wax may be excluded ; liquids may be excluded—because they endanger the ful- fillment of the contract with all the other senders of mail- matter. But the Government is not called upon to sit in judgment upon the moral character or intellectual quality of the parcels entrusted to it. 5. Because the laws in question are so liable to abuse by a narrow-minded or provincial officer. They enable the prim and prudish village to judge and condemn the metro- polis. 40 PEN, PULPIT AND PLATFORM. 6. Because the state laws and municipal laws, previously and now existing, are sufficient for the detection and pun- ishment of all real offenders against decency and good morals. With regard to the constitutional argument, so ably and powerfully presented by yourself, I can only say, being no lawyer, that it seems to be unanswerable. It came upon my mind with convincing power, and I have never had a doubt since. These laws are wrong every way, and per- nicious in many ways. You know how I hate and loathe the books and papers that circulate among boys, which can have no other than a corrupting effect. I could join, heart and hand, in hanging a wretch who, for a little money, would either write, or publish, or sell such works. And yet it seems to me that the espionage of mails by an illiter- ate person is even a worse tvd than that. It menaces the vety citadel of liberty. Yes, I go for immediate and unconditional repeal ; and this has been my feeling ever since reading your masterly speech delivered in Faneuil Hall last summer. Very truly yours, James Parton. T. B. Wakeman. REV. 0. B. FROTH INGHAM FOR REPEAL. No. 50 West 36TH Stkeet, New York, Nov. 18, 1878. My Dear Sir : Your note of the loth inst. admonishes me of a duty that should have been discharged before —the duty of telling you that your argument on the “ Comstock Postal Law” has made me an advocate of repeal vs. modification. The discussion of this autumn has brought me to the conclusion that this is the simple, logical, sen- sible and only satisfactory method of dealing with the ob- noxious piece of legislation. The liberals of the other opinion call for repeal of as much of the law as threatens freedom of thought and discussion. The insolent associa- tion of Free-thought with obscenity so stirs my indignation that for honor’s sake, if for no other reason, I should feel compelled to demand that the whole be swept away. The friends of decency must look for safeguards elsewhere. Yours cordially, O. B. FROTHINGHAM. To T. B. Wakeman. PARKER PILLSBURY’S BROADSIDE. 41 PARKER PILLSBURY FOR REPEAL. “Talk of amending such a law as this!” exclaims that veteran champion of liberty, Mr. Parker Pillsbury.— “ Enacted in such a way, and for such purposes, a id at such instigatio ’, and committed to the care of a single in- dividual for e ecution ; and of such an individual as he has proved hims If; and after such attempted execution as we have already seen, and with such success ! Talk of MENDING a burlesque !—a mockery like that ? Rather tear it from the statute-book it so disgr ces, and let it be burned by the common hangman at the front of every court-house in the United States, and let all the people say, Amen ! TIIE PETITION FOR REPEAL; WERE THE APPENDED NAMES FORGERIES? The New York Evangelist in its issue of Jan. 16, 1879, publishes a lei ter from Bo Ton, in whi h occurs t e following : “ About a month before Heywood’s sentence Congress was petitioned for the repeal o' the N.iti nal laws c j; cern- ing the transmission of ob cene mrt'er thr ugh the mails. Th petition had 1 early 70.000 signatures, and am >ng them was a numerous list of th - most prornin nt and influ- 42 THE PETITIONS FOR REPEAL. ential men in New York and el ewher *. Mr. Comstock became awure o this fact and went to those men personalia every one of whom declared that h s n m; was a forgery !” There are har ly woids in ihe English language suffi- ciently str ne arising out of a question of jurisprudence, I know no one to whom I can apply for assistance, with so sure a hope of relief, as from you. In the revision of my criminal code, I have now under consideration the chapter of offences against public morals. This is intended to comprehend all that class which the English jurists have vaguely designated as offences contra bonos mores, finding it much easier in this, as they do in many other cases, to give a Latin phrase, which may mean anything, rather than a definition. 46 PEN, PULPIT AND PLATFORM. I have serious thoughts of omitting it altogether, and leaving the whole class of indecencies to the correction of public opinion. I have been led to this inclination of mind (for as yet I have formed no decision) from the examination of the particular acts which in practice have been brought under the purview of this branch of criminal jurisprudence. In the absence of anything like principle or definition, I was obliged to have recourse to not only precedent, but to the books of precedents; and they strongly reminded me of some forms which I have seen in Catholic church books, of questions which are to be put to the penitent by the pro- f ssor, in which every abomination that could enter into t ie imagination of a monk is detailed, in order to keep the mind of a girl of fifteen free from pollution ! Turn to any indictment of this kind in the books, for the publication of obscene books or prints, or for indecency of behavior, and you will find the innuendoes and exposition of the offence infinitely more indecorous, more open viola- tion of decency, than any of the works they are intended to punish and repress. The evidence must be of the same nature, and hundreds will hear the trial who never would have seen the book or print. This evil is inevitable, if such acts are punished by law. There is another evil of no less magnitude, arising from the difficulty of defining the offence. Use the general expression of the English law, and a fanatic judge, with a like-minded jury, will bring every harmless levity under the lash of the law. Sculpture and painting will be banished for their nu- ,• dities ; poetry for the warmth of its descriptions ; and J music, if it excite any forbidden passion, will scarcely escape. On the whole, I am surrounded by difficulties. Help REV. O. B. FROTHINGHAM’S DISCOURSE. 47 me to a definition that shall include what ought to be pun- ished, and not give room for the abuse I have pointed out. Let me know how I shall decently accuse and try a man for indecency ; or else fortify me in my opinion of letting public opinion protect public morals. THE GOOD SOLDIER. The Rev. O. B. Frothingham in his discourse at the Masonic Temple, Dec. 15, ’7S, spoke of the good soldier in a way which proves that he himself is entitled to the desig- nation. The following report of the sermon we find in the Herald. If our space would permit we should be pleased :o publish the sermon in full. But the following is suf- ficient to show the drift of it: It was not too late, he contended, to speak of persecu- tions for opinion’s sake when it is remembered that in Massachusetts, the cradle of American liberty, a man (Ezra II. Heywoodl may be convicted and imprisoned for holding his opinion and that in New York another (D. M. Bennett) can be indicted on this account. Mr. Frothingham argued that so far as final results were concerned it made no dif- ference whether a man’s opinions were true or the reverse If the opinion questioned be a true one all assaults upon it will be absolutely vain, and the attack will recoil, upon him who made it ; and if, on the other hand, the opinion be not founded in truth no amount of advocacy, come from whence it may, can suffice to prop it up. The champion of erroneous ideas is ruined by the click of his own gun The Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus—the head of the civilized world in his day—was a man whose elegant writings are among the Greek cla sics : a man of the kindest heart and sweetest sympathies, but also one of indomitable will. Educated a Stoic, he was a woman in nature, and had in essence anticipated some of the best 48 PEN, PULPIT AND PLATFORM. precepts of Christianity, yet he was an opponent of the faith of Christ. He had no respect for its superstitions, and he lifted the mighty hand of a Roman emperor against it, whereby he has earned for himself the stigma of perse- cutor. Yet he was as fully justified in his course as those are justified who to-day persecute atheism, materialism and the like. Ah ! what a different sort of Christianity we might have had if Marcus Aurelius had adopted the Chris- tian religion and infused into it the nobleness, tenderness goodness of his own nature. Here Mr. Frothingham en- deavored to show that as no man knows he is wholly right in abstract ideas, so no one can be justified for persecuting his brother on account of a mere difference of opinion.— He asked if atheism, materialism, Nihilism were false, and if the answer was in the affirmative, how could the asserter of their falseness prove he was right ? * * * * * # Mr. Frothingham adverted to a Congressional enactment passed at the instance of a certain society for the suppres- sion of crime, and he claimed that this enactment was whol- ly inoperative and useless, excepting for the purposes of persecution by some few fanatics and monomaniacs. LIBERTY AND MORALITY. The Rev. Moncure D. Conway delivered not long ago in South Place Chapel, Finsbury, England, a discourse on “ Liberty and Morality ” which happens at this time to apply as forcibly to some things going on in this country as to what was then transpiring in England. In this discourse Mr. Conway is taking the British Society for the Suppres- sion of Vice to task for depriving Mrs. Besant of her child and for imprisoning Mr. Truelove. In the course of his remarks he says “that the original aim of the so- ciety may have been really to suppress vice, but there is REV. M. D. CONWAY’S DISCOURSE. 49 reason to fear a baser influence has been at work to de- grade the association ; the members are attitudinizing as purifiers of society they must “ keep up a show of ac- tivity and more than all this, “ there is money in it.”—• All of which unquestionably applies to our society here as well as to that by the same name on the other side of the Atlantic. We have not room for the whole discourse, but the following are interesting paragraphs culled here and there and arranged without any particular reference to the order in which they were presented in the discourse : This recent oppression has, if you allow me the expres- sion, sneaked back ; it has subtly complicated itself with the moral feeling of the community ; it has hid its horns under a white cowl of purity; it has masked itself as a defender of virtue and suppressor of vice. By so doing op] ression of thought confesses that it cannot otherwise succeed even in seizing here and there an exceptional victim The resuscitation of irresponsible power anywhere is accompanied by a corresponding revival of old oppressions generally. Vernacular Press Laws in India, Turkish al- liances and attacks on free printing at home, have all one neck. If anyone had told me ten years ago that I should some day have to defend freedom of thought and of the press in this metropolis of civil liberty, I should have been as much surprised as if he had predicted that we should all be hunting wolves out of Epping Forest. I should have said to him : “ Why, John Milton settled all that over two hundred years ago. Do you mean to say that the time can come again when a man can personally suffer for his hon- est thought and its honest publication !” He would have been rash indeed had he predicted that we should live to assemble in our free societies, hard by a prison in which an innocent Freethinker languishes, and be- 50 PEN, PULPIT AND PLATFORM. side a court which robs a mother of her child because of her metaphysics. Freedom of thought were an empty name if it did not carry with it the freedom that brings thought to bear upon the social laws and customs founded on past and fettered thought. “Unproductive thought is no thought at all.”— The intellect is man’s instrument for conforming society and the world to reason and right ; and to restrain its free play among the moral and social superstitions of mankind were like folding a living seed in wrappings of a mummy. The judges of Athens put Socrates to death on the ground that his opinions tended to corrupt the youth of that city. The high Court of Jerusalem sentenced Jesus to death on similar grounds. Practical Pilate asked .— “ What evil hath he done ?”—but he got no answer. Jesus had done no evil ; he had only advanced opinions which the majority considered subversive of the moral foundations of society. And, in short, there is no persecution, no op- pression cf conscience, no massacre in history which may not be justified on the principle that you may punish a man for the evils which may be imaginatively and prospectively attributed to the influence of his opinions. Nay, all con- temporary discussion of vital problems, and new ideas, are thus placed at the mercy of nervous apprehensions. Every idea must have its influence on morals ; whether that influence will be good or evil, cannot be determined by any foresight, least of all by the prejudices of those who do not hold that idea, who hate it, and have not impar- tially studied its bearings. Many of the best books in the world have been pronounced immoral and wicked in their time, and after it ; and if the average common place of any period, as represented by judges that know only precedents, and jurors instructed by them, be allowed to suppress all thoughts and works that do not merely repeat the prevail- EEV. M. D. CONWAY’S DISCOURSE. 51 ing notions, all inquiry is at an end, all progress paralyzed. Goethe, being once in Kiel, was invited to attend a meet- ing called by some clergymen, for the suppression of ob- scene literature. He attended, and proposed that they should begin with the Bible. That ended the conference, and it was never heard of again. And that will end all these attempts to suppress books called immoral by pruri- ent imaginations, just so soon as the same measure is me- ted out to Freethinkers and Bible Societies. Edward Truelove is in gaol, but justice sees Solomon by his side and those who circulate Solomon ; and St. Paul also, and Shakespeare, Bocaccio, Montaigne, Dean Swift, Smollett, Goethe, and many other great men, who were not afraid to write of the facts of nature ; nay, many naturalists and physiologists of our time and country would be there with him to day if equal justice were done. There is no differ- ence between the plain speech in many classic works and in those which have been lately condemned as immoral, and no difference is alleged between the motives with which they are all published. The book may be very able in one case, very poor in another, but the principle of free- dom and right protect them equally. Confutation by Truth is the only suppression of error.— Persecution only fans it into strength by mingling with its smoke the glow of martyrdom. In the present case, sev- eral poor pamphlets have been drawn out of their obscu- rity and scattered broadcast through the land ; and any man of common-sense must have known that such would have been the result of attempting their suppression.— What, then, are we :o infer concerning those who have in- stituted these recent proceedings ? Are we to suppose they have not the common-sense to know that they would increase enormously the circulation of the opinions they profess to abhor ? 52 PENP, PULPIT AND PLATFORM. Lucifer began, mythologically, as a heavenly detective. He was the lawyer retained by the gods for the suppression of vice and, from long engaging in that business, he came to love it. When he had nobody to accuse he was in dis- tress, and went about accusing innocent people. So he was called the Accuser. And then he fell lower still, and went about tempting people to sin, in order that he might prosecute them ; and then he was called Satan. That was the course of the first Vice Society, and the end of its attorney. They who menace man’s freedom of thought and speech are tampering with something more powerful than gun- powder. They who suppress by force even an erroneous book hf nestly meant for human welfare, are justifying all the crimes ever committed against human intelligence, they are laying again the trains that have always ended in revolution : and, right as it is to suppress books notori- ously meant for corruption, and punish the vile who through them seek selfish ends at cost of the public good, even that is a task requiring the utmost care and wisdom. Better that many base men and many bad books escape than that one honest woman be robbed of her child by violence call- ing itself law, or one honest man suffer the felon’s chain from the very hand provided for the protection of honesty. Says a writer in the Boston Daily Globe of Jan. 16, 1878, is to be made between writings intended to debauch the mind and incite to vice and those intended to produce the opposite result by the dissemination of knowledge and of sound ideas regarding the sexual nature. Classing the two together is a monstrous misjudgment. The suppres- sion of any sober, candid discussion of questions that con- THE VERY WIDEST DISTINCTION, T. C. LELAND’S SUGGESTION. 53 cern the well-being of society is not only mistaken as a matter of policy, but it abridges the freedom of speech and of the press which is guaranteed by the Constitution of the country. AN OBSCENITY GAGUE. If we must have a censorship regulated by United Stages law, then let us have a standard a metrical measure, a con- ductor’s punch, a steam guage, or something that will in- dicate to a liberal editor how much obscenity to the square inch his literary boiler will bear. The Comstock knave is more absolute than the o e who troubled Falstaff. We must speak by the card and write in view of an obsceno- meter. Wanted an inventor to construct one immediately. M asurements and specifications may be taken from Shakespe re, Byron, Burns, Tristram Shandy, Montaigne’s essays, Hudibras, Bishop Percy’s collection of ancient bal- lads, and last—but not least—from the Bible. These works Stan on our library shelves, access ble without restriction to young and old of both sexes, and they can be ordered of any publisher and sent to the address of any purchaser through the mails. The Liberal writers of to-day will readily submit to the average register of the amount of ob. scenity in these works, and be peifectly certain of never approching the limit. Even Mr. Heywood has never ex- ceeded it. What the liberals claim is equal laws and fair play for all sides. This is all we ask ; and I hope the thinking people of the country will examine this question thorou hly, and see if they cannot plant their feet firmly upon the groun 1 of impartial freedom of the United States ma Is. There is a hard struggle impending over the ques- tio •, we are only at the beginning of it; and all hands had better be prepared to throw the w ight of their opinion and 54 PEN, PULPIT AND PLATFORM. influence upon the right side of it.—[T. C. Lei.AND in the Truth Seeker. REV. SIDNEY SMITH ON SOCIETIES FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE. WORDS FOR THE HOUR ! Three-quarters of a century ago Rev. Sidney Smith, who knew something of human nature, thus graphically de- picted the dangers to which such societies were liable :— “ It is hardly possible that a society for the suppre sion of vice can ever be kept within the bounds of good sense and moderation. If there are many members who have really become so from a feeling of duty, there will re essa ily be s' me who enter the society to hide a bad character, and others whose object is to recommend themselves to their bett rs by a sedulous and bustling inquis tion into the im- moralities of the public. The loudest and noisiest sup- porters will always carry it aga nst the more prudent part of the community ; the most violent will be considered the most moral; and those who s e the absurdi y will, from the fear of Leing thought to encourage vice, be reluctant to oppose it Beginning with the best intentions in the world, such societies must in all probabilities degene- rate into a receptacle for every species of tit le-tat le, im- pertinence and malice. Men who trade in rat-catching love to catch rats ; the bug-de troyer seizes on his bug with delight, and the suppressor is grabbed by finding his vice. This last soon becomes a mere tradesman like the others • none of them moralize, or lament that their respective evils should exist in the world. The public feeling is swallowed up in the pursuit of a da ly occupation and in the display of a technical skill.” PLAIN, SENSIBLE WORDS. 55 FROM A WRITER IN THE NEW YORK DAILY TRIBUNE. WORDS WELL SPOKEN ! Some one signing himself J. attended one of the annual meetings of the “ N. Y. Society for the Suppression of Vice,’’ as assumed by the society, or lor the “ Manufacture of Vice,” as Pkof. Rawson has charged, and he (J.)gives his views as follows : “ The good result they seek to obtain is more apparent than real, and never can be permanently successful unless the young mind can be made to realize its own moral accountability and the penalty it will have to undergo as a necessary consequence of wrong doing.” He further says that—“ there is little gain to be expected in eliminating one paiticular form of vice when so many others or other forms of the same temptation await them at every turn of life’s broad pathway. If,” he says, “ the principle of rectitude can be early instilled into our young women—a high-minded, honest purpose, and an intelli- gent KNOWLEDGE OF PHYSIOLOGICAL AND MORAL EVIL with their attending penalties—they will be measurably safe, and not otherwise.” ' This is substantially the ground taken by The Metho- dist in its article upon the postal law which forbids the cir- cula’ion of obscene books or pictures. Whatever may be necessary in the way of clearing ou un lean literature, one fact is certain :—that no hing is so well calculated to eradicate the evil as to bring ch ldren up with a thorough knowledge of themselves. To this end popular physio- logical works are indispensable. It is therefore an evi- dence of fatal indiscrimination when the agent of the So- ciety prosecutes those who are forwarding, with earnest- ness a> d purity of purpose, this branch of reform, 56 FEN, PULPIT AND PLATFORM In a brief presented to the Judiciary Committee of Con- gress, I)r. E. B. Foote, Jr., took ground in favor of a Censor, if the law is to be unrepealed or unmodified Dr. Foote, Jr , said: “In one respect our condition here in America is even worse than in the most despotic countries of Europe. In them there is a censorship of the press.— If the present postal laws must remain as they are, then we earnestly implore that a censorship be established—a board of examiners to whom publishers may submit'all works of a scientific nature before issuing them, and thus avoid the annoyance, worry, expense and opprobrium of an arrest under the obscene literature law, and the necessity of submitting the final decision to a jury of doubtful ability. It might be made a duty of certain high post-of- fice officials to decide upon such matters—which they often refuse to do at present, and whose decision now' has no legal weight, for it has even been ruled out as evidence by Judge Clarke, of Boston.” A CENSOR WANTED. ANOTHER WRITER SUGGESTS A CENSOR. As distasteful as the idea of having a censor is to the American mind, many intelligent people think such an of- ficial would be far pr ferable to the present spy and decoy system which seeks rather to entrap than to warn. A writer in The Truth Seeker, s:gning himself Artist, writes: “ Better, a thousand times, if all these impalpabl ques- tions of propriety of utterance are to become, in this freest age and freest country of the world, matters for some Sort of criminal tribunal; better a thousand times e-tablish a modified censorship of the press to accompany and soften the horrors of the new Inquisition. We ought, at least, to A SPECIAL TEIBUNAL NEEDED. have the protection of knowing beforehand whether what we have written and desire to publish will be tolerated, or whet itr it will incur the penalties of the law, and consign us t > a dungeon. We ought, at least, to have the benefit of a SERIES OF WARNINGS, such as the most despotic govern- ments give to the publishers of obnoxious political matters. We should have, indeed, some sort of special tribunal for the ti'ial of such questions—if they must be tried, instead of intrusting them, as all civilized countries have hitherto done, to the good sense of the community—a tribunal most carefully constituted of the highest experts in literature, science, art, morals and reform. The very worst contri. vance for the trial of such issues, will be trial by jury. To submit the highest inspirations of genius, and the most daring investigations of science, and the boldest specula- tions and tentatives of social reform to the blundering average opinion, the real vulgarity, of common ignorance and prejudice, would be the one thing needed to extinguish genius, to trammel scientific investigation, and clog the wheel' o progress of the world. “ Several great questions are now agitating the minds of men ; for example, whether moral results aie.best attained by legal repressions or by merely moral agencies—as in th s temperan e movement; whether devices of science and art for limiting the number of progeny are moral and ex- p.dient or immoral and inexpedient; whether more famili- arity with the processes of nature, in respect to generation especially, debauches the young mind or purifies it, etc.— Of all these, and such questions, there is a progressive and a retrogressive side. Upon all these questions the Com- stockian legislation has taken a snap-judgment in behalf of the conserva ive an 1 repressive side. Of course, that can- not be the end of it. Of course, a reaction will ,ake place, on the side of progression, and the enlargement of liberty. 57 58 TEN, PULPIT AND PLATFORM. The long lines of battles which were fought in past ages on the field of religious, and that of political freedom are now to be renewed on the social and artistic fields. The new crusade for liberty will have its martyrs, and it is to be expected that some of those who should be its staunchest defenders will show a genius for getting themselves planted on the wrong side, as it seems to me was unfortuna'ely to be the case with our friends of the Index. “ This great subject is not yet even plainly opened to the public. Artists, men of science, and reformers, are, as yet, scarcely aware of the existence much le-s of the reach, of the new legislation, It constitutes a real and form dable danger for one of them, or for some among them.— There has been always, for example, a sharp conflict, lite- rary and moralistic, over the question of The Nude in art. All bold art-instincts have been in favor of it. Real art is impossible without it. Puritanism is opposed to it. Forty years ago when Powers’ Greek Slave, and other similar works, were first exhibited in this country, puritanism took the alarm, and made a staunch fight over the subject ; and was, definitively, as it was supposed, defeated. The art- instinct triumphed. Since that time not a murmur has keen heard of objection to the usages of high art. At the Cen- tennial Exposition, at Philadelphia, nude nature was ex- hibited nearly as freely as i would have been in any capi- tal in Europe, and not even an objecting comment was made in any quar er. Put at that very time, Mr. Comstock 1 ad surreptitiously, that is to say, quietly and unobservedly( obtained at Washington, the passage of laws, nominally relating to obscenity, under which many of the artists and importers of works of art at the great national exposition could have been consigned to prison ; for beyond question a vulgar-minded jury could have been readily found whose verdict would have declared many of the pictures and mu h of the statuary there to have been indecent !” THE VOICE OF PRESIDENT HAYES. 59 TOO MUCH MEDDLING. The Potular Science Monthly for August, in an ar- ticle on “• Criminal Justice in 1876,” remarks that “a very powerful cause of the inefficient execution of justice in so- ciety is, hat goveinment perpe.ually forgets its supreme functions, in the pursuit of other ends. It a tempts to do so many things that it does nothing well, and sacrifices the very object for which it was instituted in t e attempt to accomplish others which it had no business to undertake. Instead of confining itself vigorously Jo ihe establishment of justice in all relations of society,” remarks this writer, “and then allowing the widest liberty of individual action and enterprise, it meddles with everything and ever body —interfering, checking and restraining where it should let things alone ; and undertaking to play the part ofPiOvi- dence in controlling the whole course o human interests. Justice is thus not only neglected, but injustice is wr< ught in all directions ; so that government at last becomes the instrument and partner of the great agencies of < ppression and wrong-doing in society.” THE VOICE OF PRESIDENT HAYES. We wonder if President Hayes did not have the sup- pressive postal laws in mind when in h s annual message for 1878 he said : “ The protection of liberty requires the maintenance in full vig >r of the manly methods of free speech, free press a'd free suffrage.’’ Whether he did or not, the irue principle is enunciated in no mistakable terms which have especial value at this time. 60 PEN, PULPIT AND PLATFORM. Mr. Isaac H. Bromi.f.y, in a lecture in the month of May, 1876, before the Kent Club, of the Yale Law School, on “Over-legislation,” made some note-worthy remarks. He thought we ought to have a LAW repealing Assembly alternating with the Legislature, who e funct tn should be confined to repealing laws ! “The general truth,” says B omley, “traceable through all history, the final outcome of all he efforts of mankind to acc mplish social progres or establish morality and vir- tue by legal enactments, is that whenever 11 en have un- dertaken to lay upon society the duties, privileges and re- sponsibilities belonging to the individual, then and there they have done work for som : one’s undoing b -and- y.— It is as plain in the work of your last year’s Legislature, or your last Congress, rs it was eighteen centuries ago when the Founder of a New Dispensation swept away the a cumulated rubbish and litter of forms and ceremonies, tradit'ons and laws, that had grown out of ages of effort to legislate righteousness, and establish in their ] lac he law of individual responsibility. * * * * The vworst tyranny is alw .ys that whose mainspring is in conscien- tious conviction ; it is rarely entirely brutal, or even selfish. They who piled the fagots, or builded the scaffolds where martyrs have made suffering and death glorious, were jus as conscientious and sincere in what they deemed their duty as they who stood in the flames or under the beam." OVERLEGISLATION. With Mr. Bromley’s significant and, for the present pur- pose, peculiarly appropria e remarks we rest our case.— While an intelligent censorship of the press, as suggested by two writers, is far preferable to the present ignorant cen- sorship, which has nothing to do with warnings and every- CONCLUDING WORDS. DOWN WITH COMSTOCKISM. 61 thing to do with penalties, we think the weight of opinion is in favor of the repeal of all “ Comstock laws,” state or national, and return to such enactinents for the suppression of obscene literature as the wisdom of our law-makers rather than the low cunning of unprincipled detectives may devise. To this end we wish that Auxiliary Defense As- sociations might be formed in every considerable city in the Union for the purpose of defending the innocent victims of the Inquisition, and of laboring by petitioning and other- wise to wipe from the statute books the infamous legisla- tion which gives it foot-hold on American soil. And as this is the sentiment of the New York National De- fense Association and its supporters, having no connec- tion whatever with either the Free Religious Association, or with the National Liberal Leagues, let no Rev. Joseph Cook, or any other man, place it in the mouths of any other organizations than this one from which it emanates boldly and unqualifiedly. Our Banner is unfurled with the motto—“Down with Comstockism”—the enemy of a free Republic—and we invite all Christian people of every denomination, and good people of every belief or unbelief who have the good of the human family at heart, to rally under it. There is no sectarianism in our creed, and only one final object in view. This we state too definitely to be misunderstood. At Boston, on the 5th of Jan., 1879, an associat:on was formed auxiliary to the Nat onal Defense Association, of N. Y.. whose object is to defend all persotr unjustly prose- cuted by Anthony Comstock and the Society lor the Sup pression of Vice. The following officers were elected ;— Pres dent, Mrs. Laura Kendrick ; Vice-Pre-ident, Moses Hull; Sec’iy, Mrs. Mattie Sawyer; Treas., J. S Ver ty; Executive Committee, Frank Rivers, J. Flora Tilton,’ Benjamin R. Tucker, J. H. W. Toe hey, A. R. Spinnev] BOSTON DEFENSE ASSOCIATION. FRIENDS OF Free Mails, Free Press AND FREE SPEECH. DO NOT FAIL TO SEND AT LEAST $1 To the National Defense Association! EXTRACTS FROM THE CONSTITUTION OF THIS ASSOCIATION. Article II-—1The objects of this Association are: To investigate all questionable cases of prosecution under wliat are known as the Comstock laws, State and National, and to extend sympathy, moral support and material aid to those who may be unjustly assailed by the enemies of free speech and free press. To rescue tin .se who may be convicted and imprisonen of its receipts, disbursements and transactions. The officers are A. L. Rawbon, D.D. LL.D., Presi- dent; John P. Jewett, Esq., Vice-President; E. 13. Foote, Jr., M. D., Secretary; G. L. Henderson, Esq., No. 141 Eighth street, New York, Treasurer. Executive Committee : T. C. Lelano, Esq., 201 East 71st St., N. Y., Chairman ; Hugh Byron Brown ; Wil- son McDonald; Chs. Winteeburn, M. D.; Ciis. Cod- man.