People v. Wendling

The prosecution herein arises out of the dramatizacion of the ancient folk song “ Frankie and Johnnie,” which told the tale of the adventures of Johnnie, a country boy, in a St. Louis resort for drinking, gambling and prostitution in the middle of the last century. *

The language of the play is coarse, vulgar and profane; the plot cheap and tawdry. As a dramatic composition it serves to degrade the stage where vice is thought by some to lose “ half its evil by losing all its. grossness.” “ That it is ‘ indecent ’ from every consideration of propriety is entirely clear ” (People v. Eastman, 188…