Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1868-04-30
The ohse.ne pemoer.ey.

From the New York Tribune.
The bill to suppress the iHsue Of OBJ
scene books, papers, and pictures hss
been adopted by the Legislature. We
gave q copy OF IL on Thurrday. IT is
NEST discreditabls to human nature that
any man can be found TO oppose an en-
actment Of this character; yet such q
man was found In the person.of Patrick
Ready, the representative OF the Demo-
cratic party from the lid District Of
Kings County. After the bill had pass
ed the assembly, Mr.. Ready tried to get
q reconsideration of the vote, and 10 do
60, he argued that law against obscene
publications was an attack upon the
Democratic press. The motion TO re-
consider failed, but not until Mr. Ready
had fully maintained his position. And
he was right. The suppression Of OBJ
scene, immoral and disgusting literature
Democratic Journals in the country
Next to the prohibition ofliquor-selling,
IL would be the hardest blow that could
be given to the party. The most wide
Iy-circulated and most admired Demo-
cratic paper now printed is the obscene
and blasphemous La Crosse Democrat.
That paper, more than any other, awakes
the sympathies, and expresses the opin-
ion OF the party. 1t has heaped upon
the memory OF Abraham Lincoln out
rage that would be tolerated in no other
country under heaven 1t pursues Chris
tian associations and temperance socie-
ties with the venom of a thousand cop
perheads rolled into one; 1t scoffs at
religion, mocks atvirtue, defies God, and
voids its filthy rheum upon everything
that good men respect or hold sacred.--
Under the law of suppression Of obscene
prints, this paper cannot openly circu.
late In New York. And we have at
home, also pestilential prints only less
infamous because less able the admirers
of Brick Pomeroy are many, his imita-
tors few like Satan in hell he stands
among them in shape and gesture
| proudly eminent. The alien Metropoli-
| tan Record comes somewhere near its
great leader The Sunday Mercury and
The Day Book hobble impotently be-
hind, and The Old Guard Is quite out of
sight. Mr.. Ready Is alo righ9 when his
remarks apply to casual publications,
those yellow covered books aud photo.
graphs of nude women that are hawked
around railway stations, hotels, and
grog.shops by low-browed sinister look
Ing members of the party. This stuff II
peculiarly relished and patroniZed By
Democrats. 1t is manifestation o
their idea of liberty of the press. Al
the grog-shop is the Democratic nursery
90 these bawdy publications are thei
fairy stories. Then, too, there is tht
half-d ressed style of Democratic litera
ture, the startling pictorial sort-Polic,
Gazettes, Sensations, Life in Boston, ant
papers of the kind that no man having
the least regard for deceney would taxi
to his family; these, too, fall under tn,
interdict of obscenity, and in just a
much as their circulation is diminished
| will the Democratic Marty s,lffar An,
1t is to be desired that the law may reacl
that notorious public designation h ouse
:, the "Personal !" column of nameles
: and shameless daily journal-a column
specially set apart for the use Of lew
: villains who insult schoolgirls in tn
street, and follow married women I
their doors, nay, even into their houses
by means of this scandalous Personal
advertising. We venture to hope tina
: the law Will be living power, and tina
Its reinforcement will be prompt and gen
eral. II full-grown Democrats shO0s
grovel In nasty stye Of obscenity an
: blasphsmy, we presume they cannot
entirely prevented; but society has tn
right-and we hope the power-,to ,sa
"Ydu shall dot debf uch your childre
tion-go your ways; but the risin
generation are the proteges of tn
State, and It is the will Of the gov
ernment that they shall be kept fire.
] IS possible from contamination, no fo
as law can secure that end. " The hi
has been signed by the Governor, an
now let 1t be promptly and rigOrousl
: carried out, even though its enforcement
' shoold cost the obscene Democracy til
sacrifice Of some of their ablest an
best-supported organs.