Sec. 1141. Obscene prints and articles. 1. A person who sells, lends, gives away or shows, or offers to sell, lend, give away, or show, or has in his possession with intent to sell, lend or give away, or to show, or advertises in any manner, or who otherwise offers for loan, gift, sale or distribution, any obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent or disgusting book, magazine, pamphlet, newspaper, story paper, writing, paper, picture, drawing, photograph, figure or image, or any written or printed matter of an indecent character; or any article or instrument of indecent or immoral use, or purporting to be for indecent or immoral use or purpose, or who designs, copies, draws, photographs, prints, utters, publishes, or in any manner manufactures, or prepares any such book, picture, drawing, magazine, pamphlet, newspaper, story paper, writing, paper, figure, image, matter, article or thing, or who writes, prints, publishes, or utters, or causes to be written, printed, published, or uttered, any advertisement or notice of any kind, giving information, directly or indirectly, stating, or purporting so to do, where, how, of whom, or by what means any, or what purports to be any, obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, disgusting or indecent book, picture, writing, paper, figure, image, matter, article or thing, named in this section can be purchased, obtained or had or who has in his possession, any slot machine or other mechanical contrivance with moving pictures of nude or partly denuded female figures which pictures are lewd, obscene, indecent or immoral, or other lewd, obscene, indecent or immoral drawing, image, article or object, or who shows, advertises or exhibits the same, or causes the same to be shown, advertised, or exhibited, or who buys, owns or holds any such machine with the intent to show, advertise or in any manner exhibit the same; or who,
2. Prints, utters, publishes, sells, lends, gives away or shows, or has in his possession with intent to sell, lend, give away or show, or otherwise offers for sale, loan, gift or distribution, any book, pamphlet, magazine, newspaper or other printed paper devoted to the publication, and principally made up of criminal news, police reports, or accounts of criminal deeds, or pictures, or stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust or crime; or who,
3. In any manner, hires, employs, uses or permits any minor or child to do or assist in doing any act or thing mentioned in this section, or any of them,
Is guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, shall be sentenced to not less than ten days nor more than one year imprisonment or be fined not less than fifty dollars nor more than one thousand dollars or both fine and imprisonment for each offense.
Sec. 1143. Mailing or carrying obscene prints and articles. A person who deposits, or causes to be deposited, in any post-office within the state, or places in charge of an express company, or of a common carrier, or other person, for transportation, any of the articles or things specified in the last two sections, or any circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice relating thereto, with the intent of having the same conveyed by mail or express, or in any other manner, or who knowingly or wilfully receives the same, with intent to carry or convey, or knowingly or wilfully carries or conveys the same, by express, or in any other manner except in the United States mail, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
Footnotes
[1] “James Branch Cabell is making a clean getaway with Jurgen, quite the naughtiest book since George Moore began ogling maidservants in Mayo. How come? Dreiser had the law hot after him for The Genius and Hager Revelly came close to landing Daniel Carson Goodman in Leavenworth, yet these volumes are innocent compared with Jurgen, which deftly and knowingly treats in thinly veiled episodes of all the perversities, abnormalities and damn-foolishness of sex. There is an undercurrent of extreme sensuality throughout the book, and once the trick of transposing the key is mastered one can dip into this tepid stream on every page. Cabell has cleansed his bosom of much perilous stuff—a little too much, in fact, for Jurgen grows tiresome toward the end—but he has said everything about the mechanics of passion and said it prettily. He has a gift of dulcet English prose, but I like better the men who say things straight out and use gruff Anglo-Saxon monosyllables for the big facts of nature that we are supposed to ignore.
“It is curious how the non-reading public discovered Jurgen. A few days after it appeared on the newsstands a male vampire of the films who once bought Stevenson’s Underwoods in the belief that it was a book of verses hymning a typewriter, began saying up and down Broadway: ‘Say, kid, get a book called Jurgen. It gets away with murder.’
“This sold the first edition quickly. How do they discover these things?”
Walter J. Kingsley.