[To THE EDITOR Or TEE "SrzcrAToR."]
SIR,—Your correspondent the Rev. Herbert Bull suggests the punishment of the "author, publisher, or distributor" of moral poison. Very well. But who are the distributors ? Surely he should include under this head every newspaper advertising a new book by any author who has been known to offend. As a librarian I know to what an enormous extent the demand for " bad" books has grown in recent years, and my experi- ence is that as soon as an announcement appears in the Press of a book of this class (invariably advertised as by the author of —, mentioning the most notorious of that particular author's previous efforts) shoals of orders are received for the book to be added to the subscriber's list. A penalty for announcing these books would kill many of them. Then, again, readers themselves are great distributing agents in a sense. They read the book, they are not in the least degree ashamed to talk about it, men and women alike, and as a result the book is given an enormous advertisement and an effective one. The law not only prohibits the indis- criminate sale of poisons, it prosecutes those who poison themselves. Can it not be so amended as to bring within its reach those who habitually pander to an abnormal appetite for moral poison, and then prescribe a similar diet for their acquaintances 1"—I am, Sir, &c., LIBRARIAN.
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