Undeniably, it is extremely difficult as a rule to obtain information which will reasonably lead to a conviction. Much the same may be said in connection with the sale of indecent photographs, “pictures,” etc. This disgusting traffic appears to exist, if it does not actually thrive. An alien, one of those aliens clothed in the name of “Harris,” as it happened, received a sentence of three months’ imprisonment, to be followed by deportation, from the Common Serjeant in February, 1911, for selling indecent photographs. Cases of the sort arise from time to time, but it may be assumed that the majority of the offenders escape scot free, for the simple reason that they do not get “found out.” The topic is not sufficiently interesting or important to warrant further notice. What actually concerns writers, publishers and the public at the present time is the betterment of the system of freely circulating all books. This may be taken to refer, not to the “library ban,” which is influential only from the financial standpoint, but to the application of the law controlling questionable literature. The police authorities scarcely indulge in wild hunts for the ghosts and goblins of indecency until their attention has been very definitely drawn to the existence of a likely field. That is to say, complaints come in, and in certain cases they are gone into, with the result that a prosecution ultimately follows. There are, perhaps, plenty of people who spend their time in searching for indecent paragraphs in trumpery novels. It is on their initiative that the police are compelled to have the works complained of examined, and, if the same are found to be strong enough to support a prosecution, a prosecution is the result. Now the whole machinery associated with such a prosecution is cumbersome, variable and unsatisfactory. The most choice work of genius may fall under the same axe as the literary outpourings of a woman better adapted to the _métier_ of a _cuisinière_. It is the difference in quality and the similarity in fate which demand criticism. The police defence would be that there exists in the works of both types the common fault of indecency. (The word “police” is used for want of a better descriptive title for the persons actually engaged in the examination of questioned publications.) That may be true enough. Suppose, however, that a worldly magistrate chooses to discriminate, suppose also that he is fortunate in having some tangible ground for doing so, the decision of the case must tend towards the support of the able writer and the condemnation of the material produced by the writer whose _raison d’être_ is base.