Such a contention would be inconceivable in any other civilised country.

Even the Judge was on much the same intellectual level.

It would not be fair, he admitted, to condemn a poet or dramatic writer by his works and he went on: "It is unfortunately true that while some of our greatest writers have passed long years in writing nothing but the most wholesome literature--literature of the highest genius, and which anybody can read, such as the literature of Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens; it is also true that there were other great writers, more especially in the eighteenth century, perfectly noble-minded men themselves, who somehow or other have permitted themselves to pen volumes which it is painful for persons of ordinary modesty and decency to read." It would have been more honest and more liberal to have brushed away the nonsensical indictment in a sentence.

Would the Treasury have put Shakespeare on trial for "Hamlet" or "Lear," or would they have condemned the writer of "The Song of Solomon" for immorality, or sent St.Paul to prison for his "Epistle to the Corinthians"?
Middle-class prejudice and hypocritic canting twaddle from Judge and advocate dragged their weary length along for days and days.

On Wednesday Sir Edward Clarke made his speech for the defence.