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6. In Craies's definition not only is it necessary to define ' deprave ' but it is extremely improbable that the original intention of the law was this alone. The law merely codifies social resentment, but why social opinion originally resented ' obscenity ' is a difficult question of psychology. Meanwhile, with regard to the meaning of the idea and the etymology of the Latin term, it is to be noted that the differentia of obscene things, acts and words is, negatively concealment, or, positively, publication. In other words, to take a considerable percentage of a obscene matter, this consists of natural acts and terms, and the exploitation of the organs from which they are derived, which, on being made public, offend social opinion. Thus, a plausible derivation of the word connects it with Latin obscurus, 'concealed' and terms in various languages corroborate this. But the primary meaning of the Latin word seems to have been 'inauspicious, ill-omened', and the Latins resented obscenity just for this reason of ill-omen. A parallel to this is the social objection to profane swearing. The most probable derivation, therefore, is perhaps that of. Connected with the Lat. Scoevus, 'left', 'left-handed', and inauspicious, the word obscenus, obscoenus, may presuppose obscoevinus. On the strength of the verb obscoevare, found in Plautus [Asinaria II, 1, 18]. (Hastings Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. IX, pages 441-442.) OBSCENE New Standard Dictionary Funk and Wagnalls.--Offensive to chastity, delicacy, or decency; expressing or presenting to the mind or view something that decency, delicacy and purity forbid to be exposed; offensive to morals; indecent; impure.

7. Obscene Publication (Law), an indecent publication which, whether true or false, tends to deprave and corrupt.

8. A New English Dictionary Murray.--Offensive to the senses, or to taste or refinement; disgusting, repulsive, filthy, foul, abominable, loathsome.

9. Offensive to modesty or decency; expressing or suggesting unchaste or lustful ideas; impure, indecent, lewd.

Webster's New International Dictionary.--Offensive to chastity or modesty; expressing or presenting to the mind or view, something that delicacy, purity and decency forbid to be exposed; impure; as, obscene language; obscene pictures.

The word 'obscene' was originally used to describe anything disgusting repulsive, filthy, or foul. This use of the word is now said to be somewhat archaic or poetic; and it is ordinarily restricted to something offensive to modesty or decency, or expressing or suggesting unchaste or lustful ideas, or being impure, indecent, or lewd "(R. v. Beaver (1905) 9 O.L.R. 418 per Maclaren, J. A. at pages 424, 425).

9. Ramanatha Iyer: The Law Lexicon of British India (M.L.J.) (1940) (pp. 894, 895)-

10. Obscenity.--"Lewd, impure, indecent, calculated to shock the moral sense of man by a disregard of chastity or modesty" (Black L. Diet.)

17. In order to constitute an obscene libel at common law, there has to be an intention to corrupt public morals which may however be presumed from the nature of the matter and the circumstances of the publication. If the probable effect of the publication is to prejudice public morality and decency , the defendant must be taken to have intended the natural consequences of his acts--every man if he be a rational man must be considered to intend that which must necessarily follow from what he does--per Alderson B in Gathercote's Case (1888) 2 Lewin C.C. 237 and Lord Ellenborough in King v. Dixon (1814) 3 M. &S. 11 and it is no defence that his object was to expose conduct which is or which he considers immoral and pernicious. R. v. Barraclough L.R. (1906) 1 K.B. 201 R. v. De Montalk (1932) 23 Cr. Appl. Rep. 182. If the publication be obscene it is an offence against this Act, although there was no intent on the part of the publisher to corrupt morals (R. v. Hicklin : Scott v. Wolverhampton (1868) L.R. 3 Q.B. 360. The test of obscenity is this 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 (per Cockburn, C.J., in R. v. Hicklin8, approved in R. v. Reiter (1954) 1 All E.R. 741; in which case it was held that in determining whether or not such a book is obscene, regard must be had to that book alone; other books, not the subject of charges, may not be referred to. See also the summing up of Stable, J., in R. v. Marin Seeker Warburg Ltd (1954) 2 All E.R. 683.