猥褻文書取締りロード・キャンベル法
経験の教えるところでは,特に英国の演劇の場合は,色情(lust)をそそることを目的とした軽薄な劇が,堅苦しい人間だと思われたくない検閲官(the sensor)の目を簡単にパスする(合格する)のに対して,『ウォレン夫人の職業』のような大きな問題点(論点)を提起するまじめな劇が検閲官に合格とされるまでに長い年月がかかり,『チェンチ家』のような卓絶した詩的価値のある劇が,聖アントニウスにさえ色欲をかき立てるような言葉は一つも含んでいないのに,大法官の男性的な心情に引き起こした嫌悪感を克服するのに百年も要した(のである)。 それゆえ,我々は,膨大な歴史的証拠に基づいて,検閲はまじめな芸術的あるいは科学的な価値のある著作を禁止するために行使されるのに対して,純粋に好色であることを目的とする人たちは常に法の網をくぐる道を発見する,と断言してよいだろう。 |
Chapter VIII: The Taboo on sex knowledge, n.17As regards the first of these theses, it is abundantly established by the history of the use which has been made of Lord Campbell's Act in England. Lord Campbel1's Act, as anyone may discover by reading the debates on it, was directed solely to the suppression of pornography, and it was thought at the time that it had been so drafted as to be incapable of use against other types of literature. This belief, however, was based upon an insufficient appreciation of the cleverness of policemen and the stupidity of magistrates. The whole subject of the censorship has been admirably treated in a book by Morris Ernst and William Seagle. (note: To the Pure, Viking Press, I928.) They deal with both British and American experience, and more briefly with what has been done elsewhere. Experience shows, especially in the case of the dramatic censorship in England, that frivolous plays calculated to excite lust easily pass the censor, who does not wish to be thought a prig, while serious plays which raise large issues, such as Mrs. Warren's Profession, take many years to get past the censor, and a play of transcendent poetical merit like The Cenci, although there is not a word in it that could excite lust even in St. Anthony, required one hundred years to overcome the disgust which it raised in the manly bosom of the Lord Chamberlain. We may therefore, basing ourselves on a mass of historical evidence, lay it down that the censorship will be used against works of serious artistic or scientific merit, while persons whose purpose is purely salacious will always find ways of slipping through the meshes of the law. |