Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/497

 490 FEDERAL REPORTER. �not extend to papers or writings which are not publications within the evident meaning of the law. The object of con- gress bas been declared by the United States supreme court to be to refuse the facilities of the mails for the "distribution of matter deemed injurious to the public morals." Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. B. 727. And in the case of Bennett, S. Dist. N. Y,, 1879, itwas said to be the prevention of the use of the mails "for the purpose of disseminating obscene literature. " Both these declarations eeem to except from the purview of the statute written communications of a private, personal nature, emanating from a single person, and exhibiting no purpose of going beyond the one directly addressed. As the court, in the WoodhuU Case cited, remarked of newspapers, so it may here be said of private letters, that if it were the intention to include them nothing could have been easier than to add those words to the general list; but, on the contrary, the stat- ute speci&cally refers to letters of a single class as contra- band. After declaring indecent papers and writings non- mailable, it adds, "and every letter upon the envelope of which, or postal card upon which, indecent, lewd, obscene would be needless if the words "paper" and "writing" were intended to cover every paper and ail written matter, because postal cards and envelopes on which obscene language is written are both obscene papers and obscene writings. Hence, the special designation of postal cards and letters indicates that they were not embraced by the preceding words, "paper, writing, or other publications," and that it was not intended to exclude from the mails other letters than those so speciiic- ally described. �The reference to letters shows that congress had them in mind, and, by designating a certain class of them as non- mailable, there seems to have been an intention to confine the prohibition to that class, namely, those wherein the inde- cent matter is exposed to the inspection of others than the person directly addressed — a distinction in accordance with the spirit of the statute before suggested. The statute is a penal one, and must bs strictly construed, and cannot be ����
 * * terms or language may be written." This addition