Ex-Judge of the Supreme Court of Missouri and Press of E. W. STEPHENS, 1900. Entered according to Act of Congress. in the year 1900, by E. W. STEPHENS, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. PREFACE. TH MIE author offers no apology for presenting this treatise to the public. While Assistant Attorney-General for the Postoffice Department he saw or thought he saw need for some work that would guide postal officers, the publishers of newspapers, the Bench and Bar and the people generally in determining what is non-mailable matter on account of its relation to lottery and fraudulent schemes and obscenity. There is now no work on this subject in this country or any other so far as the author knows, and a judge, attorney or postal official, desiring information on the subject of non-mailable matter of this character, must go through the decisions of the various State and Federal Courts. These cases are grouped into classes so the reader can easily find what he wants. That the work is imperfect is admitted and it is evident it might have been made more or less voluminous but the different subjects have been treated as briefly as possible, con sistent with clearness. While the author has taken the liberty of freely criticizing the decisions of the courts and officers, when he deemed it proper, he has given all the cases he could find whether they contained views in consonance with his own or not and it is left to a generous public to determine whether the criticism be just or unjust. DeSoto, Missouri. THE AUTHOR. January 15, 1900. |