it is certain that an overwhelming majority of British editors and "leader-writers" endorsed the views of the Pharisees. The campaign was then carried to a decisive stage. A firm of solicitors, Collette & Collette, applied at Bow Street police-court for a summons against Henry Vizetelly for having published three obscene books, to wit, "Nana," "The Soil" ("La Terre"), and "Piping-Hot" ("Pot-Bouille"), by Émile Zola. The summons was granted, and on August 10, 1888, Vizetelly appeared to answer it. The prosecution had been entrusted to Mr. Asquith,--now best known as a politician,--and he, in opening his case, was about to deal with "Nana," when the magistrate, Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Bridge, who evidently had already made up his mind respecting the case, suggested that he should take the worst of the three books, namely "The Soil,"--for which, by the way, Zola had received the decoration of the Legion of Honour three weeks previously! Counsel assented, referred the magistrate to various pages, and then solemnly declared that this book and the two others were "the three most immoral books ever published!" But having thus revealed how very limited was his knowledge of literature, he added, fairly enough, that it was claimed for "The Soil" that it had been published with a high moral object--namely, to show the degradation of the French peasant and the necessity of alteration in the laws by which he was governed. Vizetelly's solicitor, Mr. Lickfold (of Messrs. Lewis & Lewis), argued on his client's behalf that he had a perfect right to publish these translations, the French originals of which were circulated in Great Britain without let or hindrance; and he contrasted them with English works which were sold widely and freely, such as Byron's "Don Juan," and Shakespeare's "Merry Wives of Windsor." Far from the incriminated books being the three most immoral ever written, said Mr. Lickfold, there were many within the cognisance of all men of any education which were very much worse. But the magistrate curtly intimated that it was a case for a jury to decide, and he forthwith committed the defendant for trial at the Central Criminal Court, admitting him, meanwhile, to bail in his own recognisances.