uppressed
by the police."

WALT WHITMAN, the odd and original American poet, enjoys in his
declining years and feeble health the admiration of a large number of
literary friends, who are to build him a beautiful little cottage. His
special admirers regard him as the greatest of American poets, and he
has equally warm admirers among the foreign literati. A Walt Whitman
club is to be established in his honor at Philadelphia. Yet it is not
long since Mr. Whitman was made the target of the "prurient prudes,"
who carry on the Comstockian movement of the Vice Society, and was
ordered to expunge some of his writings. Mr. Whitman defied them, and
his literary prestige has sustained him; but Mrs. Elmina Drake
Slenker, of Western Virginia, a woman of humble surroundings, has been
pounced upon, arrested, and placed on trial for discussing in private
correspondence physiological questions in reproduction which might
have been discussed by physicians in medical journals with impunity.
Her friends regard this as an outrage, considering her exemplary
character and philanthropic motives. The Congressional law under which
the prosecution of Mrs. Slenker has been instituted, is a specimen of
hasty legislation, rushed through in the last hours of the 42d
session, more than one-half of all the acts being passed on the last
day and night amid the most disgraceful confusion and uproar.

A well-educated community will learn that the charge of obscenity in
such cases expresses a quality which belongs neither to nature nor
art, but to the foul minds in which such ideas rise. This was
illustrated by an intelligent judge in Maine. _The Health Monthly_
says:

"Recently in Portland an art dealer was arrested for exhibiting
immoral pictures in his window. Mr. Stubbs, the artist, gathered
up samples of all the pictures that he had exhibited in his
windows and took them with him into court. He placed them about
the court room on chairs and benches. They were copies of
masterpieces of the Paris Salon of well-known subjects, and such
as are familiar to all art critics. As Judge Gould looked about
him and saw these pictures he thought it unnecessary to take
testimony, but descending from his desk he made a pilgrimage of
the room, carefully inspecting each picture. He exhibited much
appreciation, and after examining the last one, he complimented
the taste of the art dealer and dismissed the case. A