◆ SpookStack

The Government, in certain portions of its Memo- randum of Law, talxs of, and I find two cases” which have described material as being "obscene per se." But I cannot understand this to mean that the material was held to have @ prurient appeal without reference to any beholder. I take it to mean that in the cases under decision there was not shown 3° United states v. Rebhuhn, 109 F.2d 512 (24 Cir.), cert. denie 5. 3 United States v. Newman, ° 24 Cir. 1944). But the court in Rebhuhn also Baid:"Most of the books could lawfully have passed through the mails, if directed to those who would be likely to use them for the purposes for which they were written, though that was not true of one or two; for example, of that entitled, *8ex Life in England', which was a collection of short and condensed erotic bits, culled from various sources, and plainly put together as pornography .... (Wie will assume ... that the works themselves had a place, though a limited one, in anthro- pology and in psychotherapy. They might also have been law- fully sold to n who wished seriously to study the sexual practices of savage or barbarous peoples, or sexual aberrations; in other words, most of them were not obscene per se. In several decisions we have held that the statute does not in all circumstances forbid the dissemination of such publications, and that in the trial of an indictment the prosecution must . , prove that the oe toa tine tee & conditional privilege, ynten he law gives hin, Cit nnet Tizsses, and Levine. However, in the case at bar, the prosecution succeeded upon that issue, when it showed that the defendants had indiscrimi- mately flooded the maile with advertisements, plainly Gesigned merely to catch the prurient, though unéer the guise of ¢is- tributing works of scientific or literary merit. We do not mean that the distributor of such works is charged with a duty to insure that they shall reach only proper hands, nor need we @ay what care he must use, for these defendants exceeded any Possible limits; the circulars were no more than appeals to the Salaciously disposed, and no sensible jury could have failed to plerce the fragile screen, set up to cover that purpose." . 109 F.2d 512, 514-5 (2d Cir. 1gho). . -19 -