"Decency Outraged"

" Decency Outraged "

The exhibitor of a painting depicting Mr. Bryan and other prohibitionists interrupting the "marriage at Cana of Galilee"--where Christ turned water into wine--was held guilty in a Manhattan magistrate's court of an act which " openly outrages public decency." The decision was based upon a proposition which most lawyers regard as long ago abandoned--that Christianity is "part of the common law of the land." From this it was deduced that there was at least an outrage on public decency within the meaning of the law, because, to paraphrase the court's language, "it seriously offends the religious beliefs and sensibilities of the adherents of the Christian faith and tends to undermine and weaken religious and moral restraints."