p. 480 | Obscene Pictures by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 5, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 30.

Obscene Pictures.

By Editor

"ANTHONY COMSTOCK has lately begun a crusade upon the obscene and vulgar cigar-store pictures, which have become a favorite means of advertisement of the cheap and nasty commercial cigarette. He purposes to clear that city of what he justly regards as a source of demoralization and an insult to decency. Comstock . . . always acts in so eccentric a manner that much of his moral influence is lost. It is a great pity, however, that we have not some one like him in this city to sweep out of shop windows on the main streets the obscene photographs which now fill them."—San Francisco Chronicle.

We are glad to know that an effort of this kind has been inaugurated in New York, and we hope that the work may not be confined to that city, but that it may be carried on till those who are daily polluting with the fumes of alcohol and tobacco, the atmosphere of every city and village in our land, shall have learned that they may not also bring the blush to the cheek of modesty, and corruption to the minds of the youth, by displaying in public places, pictures which are base caricatures of art and offenses to decency.

Perhaps there is nothing that shows more clearly the debasing effects of liquor, tobacco, theaters, and obscene literature, than the sensual, indecent, and utterly demoralizing pictures which are universally used to advertise these kindred abominations. It is impossible for any one whose moral sensibilities are not blunted, to walk the streets of any of our cities, or even the smaller towns, without having the eye offended and the heart pained by the sight of lewd and disgusting pictures displayed on every hand from bulletin boards, fences, and shop windows.