ABSTRACT
A man does not become a criminal because some one else assaults him, unless his own conduct is in itself illegal or may be reasonably considered a direct provocation to violence. Thus all these crimes of injurious words must be kept within very narrow limits if they are not to give excessive opportunities for outlawing heterodox ideas. The Supreme Court for the first time extended constitutional protection to books alleged to be obscene; for now at least this liberty has been established - the liberty of a parent to read a book that may be unfit for his young son or daughter. The decision is a notable gain for literary freedom. The test for obscenity, said Cockburn, was "whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall".
