Word: soho
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...Book publishers rarely beg the government to prosecute a book for obscenity. But that is just about what the English firm of Calder & Boyars did early this year. The book was Hubert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn, which had been banned in London's Soho district (TIME, Dec. 30). Under English custom, such local rulings tend to be honored throughout the country. Calder & Boyars decided that the only way to lift the ban was a full-scale trial, and the government finally agreed to prosecute. Said Publisher John Calder: "I'm sure we'll win before a jury...
...with a hatchet face crowned on a high dome with an inverted bowl of reddish hair cut in bangs. He liked to invite friends early to a party to help him "scent the flowers." He was happiest "when the lamps of the town are lit," and held forth at Soho cafes, bantering with other wits of the day. "Nero," he said once, "set Christians on fire like large tallow candles"; then he added wickedly that this was "the only light Christians were ever known to give...
Black appealed to London Magistrate Leo Gradwell, whose Marlborough Street court has jurisdiction over the Soho restaurant district and the offices of Exit's British publishers, Calder & Boyars. Black charged the publishers with violating the 1959 Obscene Publications Act by having "obscene articles in their possession for publication for gain." For his part, the magistrate cooperated by issuing a search warrant. The police seized three copies from the publishers and the prosecution was on -with no jury trial...
Firmly ruling that Exit "has a tendency to deprave and corrupt," Magistrate Gradwell ordered his three copies destroyed and in effect banned all future sales-a decision that actually applies only to his own Soho district. Despite that limitation, said one alarmed British publisher, Gradwell's precedent invites "any crank to start proceedings against a book he does not like. All you need is a friendly magistrate." As a result, the publishers are now practically begging the government to prosecute-with a jury. Their hope is obviously to give the book nationwide legal approval. Watchdog Black...
...broken in at his favorite London whorehouse. Meanwhile, his two daughters, aged five and 15, are kidnaped and sold to a Paris bordello, after which a band of reformers, led by Lenton's wife and the Salvation Army, cleans up Great Britain-never envisioning that Piccadilly and Soho would one day witness the blossoming of newer and gamier sex-traffic jams...