Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/493

 eSG FEDËBAIi BBPOBTBB. �find no reported case in which this precise question Las been discussed and decided, and it will be necessary, therefore, to refer to the series oî legislation upon the subject. The act of March 3, 1865, section 16, provided that "no obscene book, pamphlet, picture, print, or other publication of a vulgar and indecent character" should be admitted into the mails, and punished their deposit therein. The act of June 8, 1872, section 148, added to the prohibited matter "any letter upon the envelope of which, or postai card upon which, scurrilous epithets may have been written or printed," and prescribed a penalty for deposit of any "suoh obscene publications." Then foUowed the acts of March 3, 1873, and July 12, 1876, which will be referred to hereafter. �It is evident that no statute, prior to 1873, declared an obscene private letter contraband. Such a letter is net a "book," "pamphlet," "picture," or "print," and is not cov- ered by the words "other publication," because they refer only to the classes specifically named. �In the case of WoodhuU, (S. District N. Y., June, 1873,) Judge Blatchford held that as the word "newspaper" was not mentioned in the act of 1872, it was not included within the meaning of the Words "other publications;" that the statute being penal, muat be strictly construed, and it meant that, with other publications of the same character, books, pam- phlets, and prints were included. In the act of 1876 the language is "obscene book, paper, writing, print, or other publication," which means, acoording to the rule of construc- tion laid down in the WoodhuU Case, that among the publica- tions prohibited were obscene books, writings, and prints. It would seem, therefore, that congress intended the statute to embrace only such writings aa are "publications" within the meaning of the law. �A "publication" is defined in the dictionaries as a book or writing published, especially one offered for sale or to public notice; and to publish is defined to issue, to make known what before was private, to put into circulation. Writings are either printed matter or manuscript. The idea of pub- licity, of circulation, of intended distribution, seems to be in- ����