Page:Trial of S.M. Landis.djvu/14

 A.—No, Sir. I told them I read part of it.

Q.—Has the book demoralized you, sir?

Objected to.

Q.—Is there anything obscene in that book?

Objected to, and withdrawn.

Q.—Do you know anything with reference to this man being confined in cell number one at the Central Station?

.—I do not see what that has to do with the question.

.—I wish your Honor would instruct this witness to remain in court.

.—I have marked some of the particular passages here, gentlemen of the jury, to which I will ask your attention when you retire to your room. I offer in evidence this advertisement of the book contained in this newspaper. It is a newspaper which appears to be regularly published. The "Sharp Shooter," price five cents.

.—I object to all, your Hon or, except the advertisement.

.—It becomes my lot as one of the counsel for the defendant to lay before you the line of defence that we expect to take. He has been indicted and brought in here for trial before you, gentlemen, under the charge of writing and publishing an obscene libel. It is not set forth in the indictment —this book itself; but is referred to, as stated by the District Attorney, as too filthy and obscene to be put upon the records of this Court. This it seems to me is pre-judging the publication itself. We shall take the ground of defense here, gentlemen, that this book was written and published by a practising physician; that it was done upon scientific grounds; that he believed, as a physician. from the large amount of experience that he had had, that some work of this description became absolutely necessary for the assistance of the human family; that it is purely a scientific work; that it does not come within the class of publications that the law calls obscene; and too filthy to set forth in the bill of indictment to be placed upon the rcordsrecords [sic] of the Court. We know very well or at least we have reason to believe, we who are not medical men, that in order to examine the human body, in order to be prepared to assist the unfortunate, mat it becomes necessary for an exposure of ever part of the human system, and in that exposure to the medical student and to the physician him self it becomes necessary, in order to give information to others that it should be set forth so as to be printed, I may say to you that we will bring a large number of medical gentlemen who will state that this book is not in their view an obscene and filthy publication but that it is a scientific medical work published not with malicious views that makes a crime or with the motive of reaching the sensual appetite and causing the public to come forth and buy the book, hat he who published it might make the paltry sum of one dollar upon each copy sold. No, gentlemen, though there are ob scene passages in this book perhaps under certain circumstances and under certain views, yet, I say, in the hands of the scientific man, or placed in the hands of any gentleman of the jury who is a member of the community, or in the hands of his wife to. read with a view to receiving information, in order to protect the human system, from the injuries that arise from the careless communications between the sexes, this book is not an obscene and filthy book. We believe that we shall show to you, that we have witnesses here in court who have been benefited by it. We are in an age of the world in which many medical men have felt and expressed themselves to the effect that in order to the protection of the human family information was necessary to be given to them upon these very subjects. A physician of high standing in the city of Boston, Mass., not perhaps in the line of this publication, has put forth a little book called "Why not" upon a subject of deep interest at this time to the whole community. It relates to the female population getting rid of the labor of bearing offspring and raising them up, called abortion in its early stages. Dr. Storer with many other physicians