The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-04-05
COMSTOCK BEATEN.
Magistrates Decide the
Triumph of Death" Is
Literature, Not LeWd-
ness.
MUST RETURN SEIZED COPIES
The "parity" Crusader Not an
Autocratic Censor Of What New
Workers Shall Read.
lust RETURN SEIZED COPIES

NEW YORK, April 5, S97.-Presiding
Judge Hinsdale, in the Court of Special
sessions, this morning, acquitted George
H. Richmond, the publisher, who was
tried on a charge preferred by Anthony
Comstock of selling a slewd lasciyious
and indecent book, to wit, The triumph
OF DEATH by Gabriel D'Annunzio. AS
soon as the decision was announced Law
yer James Fisk made a motion asking
that the District Attorney be ordered to
return to Richmond all the copies of the
book seized in the raid. The motion was
granted and the order made.
After the defendant, who had been in
the business of publisher and book dealer
for twenty-five years, was arrested by
Anthony Comstock on a charge of selling
a book which Comstock considered indie
cent, the point was brought out that
neither Richmond nor the Triumph of
Death was on trial, but Anthony Com
stock himself.
The principal point to be determined by
the decision, it was held, was not the al
legged immortality of the book, but wheth-
er Comstock had full power to arrest any
one as he saw fit for alleged immortality
without discrimination. Several of the
best known literary critics of the city
were on hand at the trial to testify that
they found nothing Objectionable in he
book.
The Judges held, however, that it was
their p~rerogative to decide upon the i'm
morality of the book, and, incidentally,
upon Comstock's power as a censor to
arrest summarily any one for selling
what seemed to Comstock an immoral
book. If Anthony Comstock interprets
the decision of the Court of Special Ses-
as at issue, it will mean for him that his
power as an arbitrary censor has been
considerably lessened.
The arrest of Richmond for the sale of.
a DOCK recognized as of high literary and
artistic merit, openly printed and openly
SOLD IN the leading bookstores in the city,
was as an outrage upon the
defendants fair name in business by his
lawyer in the brief submitted to the
on Saturday.
fo,, phe % 9nl so, man, said the brief, who
anything of a prurient or Objectionable
nature in the book was that arbitrary
censor Of the American press and of
BOOKS, ComStock, a man who pretendS to
lind a few passages therein which might
excite as to him impure imaginations and
as TO him of suggesting impure thoughts
and impure DESIRES"
/. ComStock was not in court this morn
ing when the decision was given. The
court proceedings were exceedingly short.
George H. Richmond and George 81.
Rlchmond, Jr., to the bari" shouted Chief
The defendants n Lawyer Fisk APP
peared at the bar.
The defendants are acquitted" said
Justice Hinsdale.
s'What?'" asked Lawyer Fisk, who had
caught the low tone in which the
Presiding Justice spoke.
Il said Acquitted " replied the JUS
tice. os
Then would ask" said LAWYER Fisk
.that the District Attorney be ordered
return all our property to us thai he
has in his possession"
certainly said the Justice, '.the or
der will be issued"
h Richmonds and Lawyer Fisk Their
le1t the court In the lobby thew were
ongfatulateG by j. j. Little, the printer. |
Ing otners on the outcome of the case.
When the arrest was made on March
! Comstock seized nearly 1000 copies of
Inc work. He declared at the time that
It was the nastfest and most nrI,riant |
BOOK he had ever read and that he would
shoot any man who would give such q |
to a child of his. Througho1It both
he police court hearings and the trial
n special Sessions, Comstock made the
effort of his life toward securing a CON
Vlctl0n- When he handed his brief to |
The justices last Monday it was the most |
engthy brief ever HANDED up in the |
court.