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IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
BY
ANNIE BESANT.
BEING AN ENQUIRY WHETHER THE BIBLE COMESWITHIN THE RULING OF THE LORD CHIEFJUSTICE AS TO OBSCENE LITERATURE.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
AN ENQUIRY WHETHER THE BIBLE COMES WITHINTHE RULING OF THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICEAS TO OBSCENE LITERATURE.
The ruling of Sir Alexander Cockburn in the late trial, theQueen against Bradlaugh and Besant, seems to involvewider issues than the Lord Chief Justice intended, or thanthe legal ally of Nature and Providence can desire. Thequestion of motive is entirely set on one side; the purestmotives are valueless if the information conveyed is such asis capable of being turned to bad purposes by the evil-mindedand the corrupt. This view of the law would notbe enforced against expensive medical works; provided thatthe price set on a book be such as shall keep it out of reachof the “common people,” its teaching may be thoroughlyimmoral but it is not obscene. Dr. Fleetwood Churchill,for instance, is not committing an indictable offence bygiving directions as to the simplest and easiest way of procuringabortion; he is not committing a misdemeanour,although he points out means which any woman couldobtain and use for herself; he does not place himself withinreach of the law, although he recommends the practice ofabortion in all cases where previous experience proves thatthe birth of a living child is impossible. A check to populationwhich destroys life is thus passed over as legal, perhapsbecause the destruction of life is the check so largelyemployed by Nature and Providence, and would thus ensurethe approval of the Solicitor-General. But the real reasonwhy Dr. Churchill is left unmolested and Dr. Knowltonis assailed, lies in the difference of the price at whichthe two are severally published. If Dr. Knowlton was sold at 10s. 6d. and Dr. Churchill at 6d., thenthe vials of legal wrath would have descended on theadvocate of abortion and not on the teacher of prevention.The obscenity lies, to a great extent, in the price of the booksold. A vulgar little sixpence is obscene, a dainty half-sovereignis respectable. Poor people must be content toremain ignorant, or to buy the injurious quack treatisescirculated in secret; wealthier people, who want knowledgeless, are to be protected by the law in their purchases ofmedical works, but if poor people, in sore need, finding“an undoubted physician” ready to aid them, venture to