Some of the worst orgies of sensationalism and the exploitation
of degrading details -have been the outcome of trials which are not covered by this Bill at all. The Bill is thoroughly good, we think, for its particular pur- pose, though it suffers, as all such Bills must, from the extreme difficulty, indeed the impossibility, of defining indecency or oliseenity. Every newspaper guilty of indecency or obscenity can be prosecuted under the present law, but unfortunately unscrupulous papers while de- moralizing the public by every' kind Of suggestion can comfortably keep just on the right side of what is in- a technical sense a violation of the law. A foreigner visiting this ..country during , a sensational trial might suppose that most English people were living in adultery, and he would be encouraged to think that the guilty parties were regarded less as reprobates than as heroes and heroines. He would see photographs of them in innumerable -newspapers ; he would read of their latest sayings and doings ; and he would learn that they were being offered large sums to appear upon the films.
*.• * * *
Previous page
