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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 2

[trade dispatches]

There was an error in the telegram regarding the imprint case last month. It appeared that a printer had been heavily fined for circulating without an imprint a tract condemning gambling on Scriptural grounds. From fuller details since to hand, it appears that the leaflet was of a precisely opposite character. At the same time we hold that to punish the printer of objectionable literature in this manner is unjust. If the publication is opposed to public morals, let the parties concerned be dealt with for the offence they have committed against society; and not attacked on the side-issue of omission of an imprint.

An important decision affecting libel actions was given in Auckland during the present month by Mr Justice Gillies. The alleged libel was contained in a letter that dealt with other matters as well. The receiver of the letter thought proper to give the portion of the letter that referred to the plaintiff, to him. This portion only was forth-coming in court, and his Honor ruled that when a libel was contained in a written document the whole of the document must be produced so as to show whether what was complained of was not qualified or explained.—One of our contemporaries is of opinion that this was « a very fine point. » On the contrary, we think that besides being good law, the decision was sound common sense.

The lowest depth of periodical literature is reached in the illustrated « police gazettes » and kindred publications, the sale of which is prohibited in many of the United States. The miscalled « society journals » of the colonial cities, however, run them very close. They are chief among the demoralizing influences of the age, and are absolutely without a redeeming point. Filled with idle gossip and scurrility contributed by anonymous writers, illustrated with sketches vile in conception, design, and execution, and appealing for support to the lower propensities of their readers, they are a curse to the community. A week or two ago, we saw one of these papers open in the window of a respectable bookseller. In a page of vulgar and offensive caricatures was one of a specially infamous kind. A girl twelve years of age had been burned to death, her clothes having ignited while she was toasting bread. The caricaturist had selected this subject, among others, and had drawn a ridiculous (headless) figure to represent the victim of the accident. Anything more utterly brutal or heartless we have never seen in print. We question whether any libel or other law could meet the case of an outrage upon decency such as this. But a grave responsibility attaches to booksellers dealing in publications of the kind. Respectable firms should refuse either to buy or sell such garbage.