Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/200

192 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS CENSUS liament in 1643. It was against this act that Milton wrote his " Areopagitica : a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing." " Para- dise Lost " itself was in danger of being sup- pressed because the simile of Satan compared with the rising sun, in the first book, was sup- posed to contain a political allusion. Parlia- ment took several measures against " scandal- ous, seditious, libellous, and unlicensed pam- phlets." In 1653 the council at Whitehall or- dered that no person should print any matter of public news or intelligence without leave of the secretary of state. The licensing system, and with it the censorship of the press, was abol- ished in England in 1694 in the reign of Wil- liam and Mary, but the question of its revival was agitated in parliament some time later. A general censorship of the press existed under the old French monarchy. Originally in the hands of the bishops, it passed by degrees to the doctors of the faculty of theology ; but this faculty becoming divided into parties on matters of controversy, the chancellor of the kingdom took the censorship from it in 1653. He ap- pointed four royal censors with an annual sti- pend to examine all works without distinction, and no writing could be printed or sold, and no dramatic piece performed, unless approved by one of them. At the outbreak of the revolu- tion the censorship was abolished and entire liberty of the press proclaimed, but in the reign of violence which followed there was no safety for obnoxious journals or writers. Napoleon during the consulate limited the freedom of the press to works of a certain size, but subjected newspapers and pamphlets to a strict inspec- tion. By a decree of the council of state in 1810, a complicated system of censorship was revived in France. Even after a book had been examined, approved, and printed, it could be seized by the minister of police and its sale stopped, a memorable instance of which was the destruction of the whole first edition of Mme. de Stael's De VAllemagne. After vari- ous modifications of the censorship, Charles X., upon coming to the throne, abolished it alto- gether, but soon after suspended the liberty of the periodical press. This was one of the causes of his fall in 1830, after which the press once more became free. Under the empire of Louis Napoleon the Parisian newspapers were subjected to strict supervision and occasional suppression; and the republic of 1870 main- tains the same system. A general censorship of the press is maintained in Russia. By the Spanish constitution of 1887 the previous cen- sorship was abolished, and all Spaniards may print their thoughts freely, subject only to the laws. The determination of offences committed by means of the press belongs to juries impan- elled for that purpose. In Switzerland since 1830 no censorship has existed, but the liberty of the newspaper press is very much restricted by laws. By the constitution of the kingdom of Greece of 1827, the Hellenes have the right of publishing freely their thoughts, abstaining however from violations of decency, from per- sonal calumny, and from attacking the prin- ciples of the Christian religion. In Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Den- mark, no authoritative censorship exists, but upon those who offend through the press pen- alties of various degrees of severity are imposed. These penalties are most rigorous in Denmark. The liberty of the German press has been even more unsettled than the political government of Germany. While the emperors of the house of Austria had vainly sought to establish uni- form rules to check the press in all the states, Frederick the Great granted uniform liberty to the press in his dominions, "because it amused him." During the ascendancy of the French republic the press was arbitrarily checked in most of the states, though it was free in Bavaria, Holstein, and occasionally in Hesse and Mecklenburg. The censorship was subse- quently abolished in some of the smaller states, as Nassau, Wurtemberg, and Saxe-Weimar; but a congress of the German rulers, assembled at Carlsbad in 1819, extended it over all print- ed publications under 20 sheets. Permission also had to be obtained for selling foreign books. The French revolution of 1830 prompted the German people to demand complete freedom from the censorship, except in cases specified by the diet; but though liberal regulations were obtained, they were upheld only a short time, and there was a gradual reaction toward the decree of Carlsbad. The movements of 1848 everywhere established the freedom of the press ; and though the subsequent reaction cur- tailed it here and there, the censorship has since remained abolished. In the United States of America there never has been a censorship of the press. There are laws against publica- tions of a scandalously immoral character, but in general the only restraint upon printing or circulating any class of books is found in the public sentiment. CENSUS, an official enumeration of persons and their property, generally with such facts as tend to show their moral, social, physical, and in- dustrial condition. In the Pentateuch the enu- meration of the people is repeatedly enjoined, and the most ancient statistical record of the kind is that of Moses in the wilderness. There is record of a census in China ordained by the emperor Yee 2042 B. C., and of one in Japan under the mikado Sujin in the last cen- tury before Christ. Under the constitution of Solon, the citizens of Athens were divided and registered (riftf/fiara, rk ri) into four classes, ac- cording to the amount of their taxable property or income. The Roman census originated in the distribution of citizens into classes effected by Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome, in a most solemn manner on the Campus Martius, where every citizen had to appear, and to de- clare upon oath his name and dwelling, the number and age of his children, and the value of his property, under the penalty of having his goods confiscated, and of being scourged