Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the court.
The plaintiff in error was indicted under section 3893 of the Revised Statutes, providing that “ every obscene, lewd, or lascivious book, pamphlet, picture, paper, writing, print, or other publication of an indecent character, . . . and every article or thing intended or adapted for any indecent or immoral use, and every written or printed card, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind giving information-, directly or indirectly, where, or how, or of whom, or by what means, any of the hereinbefore mentioned matters, articles, or things may be obtained or made, . . . are hereby declared to be non-mailable matter, and shall not be conveyed in the mails, nor delivered from any post office nor by any letter carrier; and any person who shall knowingly deposit, or causé to be deposited, for mailing or delivery, anything declared by this section to be non-mailable matter, and any person who shall knowingly take the same, or cause the same to be taken, from the mails, for the purpose of circulating, or disposing of, or of aiding in the circulation or disposition of the same, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall for each and every offence be fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five thousand dollars, or imprisoned at hard labor not less than one year nor more than ten years, or both, at the discretion of the court. . . . ”
The defendant pleaded not guilty, and the trial was entered [31]*31upon without objection in any form to the indictment as not sufficiently informing the defendant of the nature of the charge against him.
A verdict of guilty having been returned, the accused moved for a new trial upon the ground, among others, that the indictment was fatally defective in matters of substance. That motion was denied.
The defendant thereupon moved in arrest of judgment upon the.ground that the indictment did not charge that he knew, at the time, what were the contents of the paper deposited in the mail and alleged to be lewd, obscene, and lascivious. This motion was also denied, and .the accused was sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor during a period of thirteen months, and to pay a fine of one dollar.
The paper, “ Broadway,” referred to in the. indictment, was produced in evidence, first, by the United States, and after-wards by the accused. The copy read in evidence by the government was the one which, it was admitted at the trial, the defendant had caused to be deposited in the mail. The pictures of females appearing in that copy were,, by direction of the defendant, partially covered with lamp black that could be easily, erased with a piece of bread. The object of sending them out in that condition was, of course, to- excite a curiosity to know what was thus concealed. The accused read in evidence a copy that he characterized as a “ clean ” one, and in which the pictures of females, in different attitudes of indecency, were not obscured by lamp black.
The defendant having indicated his purpose to bring the case here for review, the court bélow ordered these papers to be sent to the clerk of this court with the transcript of the proceedings below.
1. The first contention of the plaintiff in error is, that the indictment was fatally defective in not alleging that the paper in question was deposited in the mail with knowledge on his part that it was obscene, lewd, and lascivious.
The indictment changed that the accused, on the 24th day of April, 1893, within the Southern District of New York, “ did unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly deposit and cause [32]*32to be. deposited in the post office of the city of New York, for mailing and delivery by the post office establishment of the United States, a certain obscene, lewd, and lascivious paper; which said paper then and there, on the first page thereof, was entitled ‘ Tenderloin Number, Broadway,’ and on the same page were printed the words and figures following — that is to say: ' Yolume II, number 27; trade-mark, 1892; by Lew Rosen; New York, Saturday, April 15, 1893; ten cents a copy, $4.00 a year, in advance; ’ and thereupon, on the same page, is a picture of. a cab, horse, driver, and the figure of a female, together (underneath the said picture) with the word ' tenderloineuse,’ and the said paper consists of twelve pages, minute descriptions of'which, with the pictures therein and thereon, would be offensive to the court and improper to spread upon the records of the court, because of their obscene, lewd, and indecent matters; and the said paper, on the said twenty-fourth day of April, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three, was enclosed in a wrapper and addressed as follows — that is to say, ' Mr. Geo. Edwards, P. O. box 510, Summit, N. J.’ — against the peace of the United States and their dignity and contrary to the statute of the United States in such case made and provided.”
Undoubtedly the mere depositing in the- mail of a writing, paper, or other publication of an obscene, lewd, or lascivious character is not an offence under the statute if the person making the deposit Avas, at the time and in good, faith, without knowledge, information, or notice of its contents. The indictment would have been in better form if it had more distinctly charged that the accused was aware.of its character. But this defect should be regarded, after verdict and under the circumstances attending the trial; as one of form under section 1025 of the Revised Statutes providing that the proceedings on an indictment found by a grand jury in any District, Circuit, or other court of the United States, shall not be affected “ by reason of any defect or imperfection in matter of form only, which shall not tend to the prejudice of the defendant.” United States v. Chase, 27 Fed. Rep. 807; United States v. Clark, 37 Fed. Rep. 106.
[33]*33The indictment on its face, implies that the defendant owned or managed the paper Broadway. He admitted at the trial that he owned and controlled it. He did not pretend that he was ignorant at the time of the contents of the particular number that he caused to be put in the post' office at New York. The general charge that he “ unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly deposited and caused to be deposited in the post office . . . a certain obscene, lewd, and lascivious paper”— describing it by its name, volume, number, date of trade-mark, date of issue, and as having on it the name of Lew Rosen, proprietor, the same name borrie by the defendant — may, not unreasonably, be construed as meaning that the defendant was, and must have been, aware of the nature of its contents at the time he caused it to be put into the post office for transmission and delivery. Of course he did not understand the government as claiming that the mere depositing in the post office of an obscene, lewd, and lascivious paper was an offence under the statute, if the'person so depositing it had neither knowledge nor notice, at the time, of its character or contents. He must have understood from the words of the indictment that the government imputed to him knowledge or notice of the contents of the*paper so deposited.
In their ordinary acceptation, the words “ unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly” when applied to an act or thing done, import knowledge of the act or thing so done, as well as an evil intent or bad purpose in doing such thing; and when used in an indictment in connection with the charge of having deposited in the mails an obscene, lewd, and lascivious paper, contrary to the statute in such case made and provided, could not have been construed as applying to the mere depositing in the mail of a paper the contents of which at the time were wholly unknown to the person depositing it. The case is therefore not one of the total omission from 'the indictment of an essential averment, but, at most, one of the inaccurate or imperfect statement of a fact; and such statement, after verdict, may be taken in the broadest sense authorized by the words used, even if it be adverse to the accused.
2. The defendant also contends that the indictment was [34]*34fatally defective, in that it did not set out with reasonable particularity those, parts of the paper relied on to support the charge in the indictment. He insists that the omission from the indictment of a description of the pictures of female figures found in the paper was in violation of the constitutional guaranty that the defendant in a criminal case shall be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him. Sixth Amendment.
A defendant is informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him if the indictment contains such description of the offence charged as will enable him to make his defence and to plead- the judgment in bar of any further prosecution for the same crime. Does the indictment in this case meet these requirements ? It describes the paper alleged to be obscene, lewd, and lascivious with such minuteness as to leave no possible doubt as to its identity. If the defendant did not have in his possession or could not procure a duplicate of such paper, he could have applied to the court for an order that he be furnished with a bill of particulars to the end that he might properly defend himself at the trial. United States v. Bennett, 16 Blatchford, 338, 351; Rex v. Hodgson, 3 Car. & P. 422; Wharton’s Cr. Pl. & Pr. § 702. He made no such application but went to trial without suggesting that he was not sufficiently informed by the indictment of the nature and cause of the accusation against him. When the paper in question was produced in evidence he made no objection to it as not being sufficiently described in the indictment, but at the conclusion of the evidence on the part of the prosecution moved to dismiss on the ground that the paper was not obscene. This motion having been overruled he testified in his own .behalf, offering in evidence a duplicate of the same paper, admitting that lamp black — capable of being easily removed so as to bring each offensive picture in.full view of any person receiving or-inspecting the . paper — had by his direction been put on the entire edition of April 15, 1893. He now insists that the indictment was fatally defective, because it did not disclose in detail the contents of . the twelve pages that were charged to constitute an obscene, lewd, and lascivious paper. [35]*35Ill it be said that he did not know what part of the twelve pages were considered by the grand jury as obscene, lewd, and lascivious, the answer is that he was not entitled to know what passed in the conferences of grand jurors. He was not entitled to show, as matter of defence, that the grand jury proceeded on insufficient grounds. He had to meet only the case made by the indictment and by the evidence adduced by the government. And if he wished to be informed, before entering upon the trial, what particular parts of the paper would be relied on as bringing the case within the statute, he could, as already suggested, have applied for a bill of particulars, which the court, in the exercise of a sound legal discre tion, might have granted or refused as the ends of justice required.
The principal authority relied on in support of the defendant’s contention is the case in England of an indictment for publishing an obscene libel, namely, “a certain indecent, lewd, filthy, and obscene book called ‘ Fruits of Philosophy,’ thereby contaminating, vitiating, and corrupting the morals, etc.” The jury found that the book was obscene, and a motion in arrest of judgment was made by the accused. The motion was denied, Cockburn, C. J., Mellor, J., concurring, held : “ If the omission is. in the indictment — if that be the objection, and it be a valid one — it is an objection that ought to have been taken by demurrer, and, therefore, I cannot help thinking that, upon the balance of convenience we shall act more wisely in saying that the judgment pronounced on this indictment ought not to be set aside by making the motion absolute to arrest the judgment; but if there be any valid foundation for the contention the defendants have raised upon the indictment it should be taken by demurrer.” Queen v. Bradlaugh, 2 Q. B. D. 569, 573. The judgment was reversed in the Court of Appeal, which held that in an indictment for publishing an obscene book, described only by its title, the words alleged to be obscene must be set out, and their omission would not be cured by a verdict of guilty. In his opinion in that case, Lord Justice Brett considered what kind of omissions would be cured by verdict, and declared, as the result of [36]*36the authorities, that “ in every kind of crime which consists in words, if the words complained of are not set out in the indictment or information, the objection is fatal in arrest of judgment.” But he also said: “ I would strike out of the category of the cases which we are considering all cases with regard to obscene prints and obscene pictures. The publication of obscene prints, and obscene pictures may be in one sense libellous, but they are not words, and therefore they do not seem to me to fall within the rules as to criminal pleadings which we are considering here to-day.” Bradlaugh v. Queen, 3 Q. B. D. 607, 634.
Looking at the cases in the American courts, we find that in Commonwealth v. Sharpless, 2 Seargeant & Rawle, 91, 103, (1815) which was an. indictment for exhibiting an obscene picture, it was objected, after verdict and on motion in arrest of judgment, that the picture was not sufficiently described. Chief Justice Tilghman said: “We do not know that the picture had any name, and therefore, it might be impossible to designate it by name. What then is expected ? Must the indictment describe minutely the attitude and posture of the figures 2 I am for paying some respect to the chastity of our records; these are circumstances which may be wéll omitted. Whether the picture was really indecent, the jury might judge from the evidence, or, if necessary, from inspection; the .witnesses could identify it. I am of opinion, that the description is sufficient.”
The question was considered in Massachusetts in 1821, in Commonwealth v. Holmes, 17 Mass. 336, 337. That was an indictment for publishing a lewd and obscene print, contained in a certain book entitled “ Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure,” and for publishing the same book. Two of the counts alleged that the printed book was so lewd, wicked, and obscene “ that the same would be offensive to the court here, and improper to be placed upon the records thereof.” Chief Justice Parker, speaking for the court, held these counts to be good, saying : “ It can never be required that an obscene book and picture should be displayed upon the records of the court: which must be done, if the description in these counts is insufficient. This [37]*37would be to require that the public itself should give permanency and notoriety to indecency, in order to punish it.” Subsequently, in Commonwealth v. Tarbox, 1 Cush. 66, 72, which was an indictment under a state enactment for printing, publishing, and distributing an obscene paper, the court said: “In indictments for offences of this description, it is not always necessary that the contents of the publication should be inserted; but, whenever it is necessary to do so, or whenever the indictment undertakes to state the contents, whether necessary or not, the same rule prevails as in the case of libel, that is to say, the alleged obscene publication must be set out in the very words of which it is composed, and the indictment must undertake or profess to do so, by the use of appropriate language. The excepted cases occur whenever a publication of this character is so obscene, as to render it improper that it should appear on the. record; and, then, the statement of the contents may be omitted altogether, and a description thereof substituted; but, in this case, a reason for the omission must appear in the indictment, by proper averments. The case of Commonwealth v. Holmes, 17 Mass. 336, furnishes both an authority and a precedent for this form of pleading.” In Commonwealth v. McCance, 161 Mass. 162, an indictment charging the defendant with selling a certain book containing, among other things, obscene language, was held to be insufficient. The court distinguished the case before it from previous cases, and said that while the principle announced in Commonwealth v. Holmes must be regarded as an exception to the general rule relating to libellous publications, the weight of authority in this country was in favor of that decision.
So, in People v. Girardin, 1 Michigan, 90, 91, which was an indictment for printing and publishing a certain paper described by its title, and characterized as wicked, obscene, etc., the court said: “ There is another rule as ancient as that contended for by the counsel for the prisoner, which forbids the introduction in an indictment of obscene pictures and books. Courts will never allow their records to be polluted by bawdy and obscene matters. To do this would be to require a court [38]*38of justice to perpetuate and give notoriety to an indecent publication, before its author could be visited for the great wrong he may have done to the public or to individuals. And there is no hardship in this rule. To convict the defendant, he must be shown to have published the libel; if he is the publisher he must be presumed to have been advised of the contents of the libel, and fully prepared to justify it. The indictment in this cause corresponds with the precedents to be found’ in books of the highest merit.”
In State v. Brown, 27 Vermont, 619, in which the indictment stated that the grand jurors omitted from the indictment the lewd and obscene paper alleged to have been sold, because it would be offensive to the court and improper to be placed on the records of the court, Chief Justice Redfield said: “ Ordinarily the indictment, in a case like the present, should set forth the book or publication in haeo• verba, the same as in indictments for libel or forgery. This seems to be an acknowledged principle in the books. But even in indictments for forgery, it may be excused, as if the forged instrument is in the possession of the opposite party. So, also, in a case like the present, if the publication be of so gross a character that spreading it upon the record will be an offence against decency, it may be excused, as all the English precedents show. Some of the precedents are much like the present, describing the obscene character of the publication in general terms. But more generally the nature of the publication is more specifically described. But in both cases the principle of the case is the same. If the paper is of a character to offend decency and outrage modesty, it need not be so spread upon the record as to produce that effect. And if it is alleged, in such case, to be a publication within the general terms in which the offence is defined by the statute, it is sufficient, which seems to be done in the present case. The degree of particularity, with which the paper could be described without exposing its grossness, would depend something upon the nature of that feature, whether it consisted in the words used or the general description given. In the former case it could not be more particularly described than it here, is without offending decency.”
[39]*39In McNair v. The People, 89 Illinois, 441, 443, the question was whether the indictment for printing, having in possession, and giving away an obscene and indecent picture was sufficient under a provision of the Illinois Criminal Code declaring that an indictment should be deemed sufficiently technical and correct, which stated the offence in the terms and language of the statute creating the offence, or so plainly that the nature of the offence could be easily understood. The court, speaking by Mr. Justice Walker, said that “it was necessary to sét out the supposed obscene matter in the indictment, unless the obscene publication is in the hands of the defendant, or out of the power of the prosecution, or the matter is too gross and obscene to be spread on the records of the court, either of which facts, if existing, should be averred in the indictment, as an excuse for failing to set out the obscene matter; that whether obscene or not, is a question of law and not of fact; that the question is for the court to determine, and not for the jury.” To the same effect are Fuller v. The People, 92 Illinois, 182, 184; State v. Smith, 17 R. I. 371, 374-5.
The earlier cases were fully examined by Mr. Justice Blatchford, when he was a judge,of the Circuit Court, in United States v. Bennett, 16 Blatchford, 338, 351, in which it was charged that the defendant “did unlawfully and knowingly deposit, and cause to be deposited, in the mail of the United. States, then and there, for mailing and delivery, a certain obscene, lewd, and lascivious book, called ‘Cupid’s Yokes, or The Binding Forces of Conjugal Life,’ which said book is so lewd, obscene, and lascivious, that the same would be offensive to the court here, and improper to be placed upon the records thereof; wherefore, the jurors aforesaid do not set forth the samé in this indictment.” Speaking for himself and Judges Benedict .and Choate, Mr. Justice Blatchford said : “ In the present indictment, the defendant had information given to him as to the offence charged, by the date of the mailing, by the title hi' the book, and by the address on the wrapper. The indictment states, the reason for not setting forth the book to be. that it is too obscene and indecent to be set forth. A copy of the book, with a designation of the obscene passages relied on, [40]*40oonld have been obtained before the trial, by asking for a'bill of particulars. The defendant was not deprived of the right ‘to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.’ The weight of authority,- as well as of reasoning, is in favor of the sufficiency of the present indictment.”
The doctrine to be deduced from the American cases is that • the constitutional right of the defendant to be informed of the nature and pause of the accusation against him entitles him to insist, at the outset, by demurrer or by motion to quash, and, after verdict, by motion in arrest of judgment, that the indictment shall apprise him of the crime charged with such reasonable certainty that he can make his defence and protect himself after judgment against another prosecution for the same offence; that this right is not infringed by the omission from the indictment of indecent and obscene matter, alleged as not'proper to be spread upon the records of the court, provided the’crime charged, however general the.language used, is yet so described as reasonably to inform the accused of the nature of the charge sought to be established against him; and that, in such case, the accused may apply to the court before the trial is entered- upon for a bill of particulars, showing what parts of the. paper would be relied on by the prosecution as being obscene, lewd, and lascivious, which motion will be granted or refused, as the court, in the exercise of a sound legal discretion,'may find necessary to the ends of justice.
The refusal of the court to arrest the judgment was not erroneous. The defendant knew from the indictment itself what paper or. publication would be offered by the government in evidence, and that the prosecution would insist that the pictures of'females displayed in that paper were obscene, lewd, and lascivious. It is said that some of the printed matter and pictures in' the paper could not possibly be regarded as of that class. That fact is not disclosed by the indictment. Besides, the failure to set out such matters and pictures could not have prejudiced the accused. The paper being offered in evidence, if it appeared that some of the printed matter or some of the pictures were not obscene, lewd, or lascivious; the [41]*41jury could have been instructed upon that subject at the instaúce of either party. But, as we have already said, the defendant did not ask for a bill of particulars nor object to the indictment as insufficient, but made his defence upon the broad ground that the paper that he caused to be deposited in the post office was not obscene, lewd, or lascivious.
We are of opinion that the indictment sufficiently informed the accused of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, and that there was no legal ground for an arrest of the judgment.
3. At the trial below the defendant, by his counsel, asked the court, to instruct the jury that he should be acquitted if they entertained a reasonable doubt whether he knew that the paper or publication, referred to in the indictment, was obscene. This request was refused, and an exception was taken to the ruling of the court.
This.request for instructions was intended to announce the proposition that no one could be convicted of the offence of having unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly used the mails for the transmission and delivery of an obscene, lewd, and lascivious publication — although he may have had at the time actual knowledge or notice of its contents — unless he knew or believed that such paper could be properly or justly characterized as obscene, lewd, and lascivious. The statute is not to be so interpreted. The inquiry under the statute is whether the paper charged to have been obscene, lewd, and lascivious was in fact of that character, and if it was of that character and was deposited in the mail by one who knew or had notice at the time of its contents, the offence is complete, although the defendant himself did not regard the paper as one that the statute, forbade to be carried in the mails. Congress did not intend that the question as to the character of the paper should depend upon the opinion or belief of the person who, with knowledge or notice of its contents, assumed the responsibility of putting it in the mails of the United States. The evils that Congress sought to remedy would continue and increase in volume if the belief of the accused as to what was obscene, lewd, and lascivious was recognized as the test for [42]*42determining whether the statute has been violated. Every one who uses the mails of the United States for carrying papers or publications must take notice of what, in this en- . lightened age, is meant by decency, purity, and chastity in social life, and what must be deemed obscene, lewd, and lascivious.
4. Another contention of the accused is, that the paper alleged to have been mailed was sent in response to a decoy letter, and, for that reason, no crime was committed. It is only necessary to say that that question has been disposed oadversely to the defendant’s contention by Grimm v. United States, 156 U. S. 604, 611. In that case it was said: “The law was actually violated by the defendant; he placed letters in the post office which conveyed information as to where obscene matter could be obtained, and he placed them there with a view of giving such information to the person who should actually receive those letters, no matter what his name; and the fact that the person who wrote under those assumed names, and received his letters was a government detective, in no manner detracts from his guilt.” That doctrine was again announced in Goode v. United States, 159 U. S. 663, 669, in which case it was said that the fact that “ certain prohibited pictures and prints were drawn out of the defendant by a decoy letter written by a government detective, was no defence to an indictment for mailing such prohibited publications.”
5. It is also assigned for error that the court left it to the jury to say whether the paper in question was obscene, when it was for the court, as a matter of law, to determine that question. If the court had instructed the jury as matter of law that the paper described in the indictment was obscene, lewd, and lascivious, no error would have been committed; for: the paper itself was in evidence; it was of the class excluded from the mails; and there was no dispute as. to its contents. It has long been the settled doctrine of. this court that the evidence before the jury, if clear and. uncontradioted upon any issue made by the parties, presented a question of law, in respect of which-the court could, without, usurping the func-[43]*43tions of the jury, instruct them as to the principles applicable to the case made by such evidence. Pleasant v. Fant, 22 Wall. 116, 121: Montclair v. Dana, 107 U. S. 162; Marshall v. Hubbard, 117 U. S. 415, 419; Sparf and Hansen v. United States, 156 U. S. 51, 99, 100. Even if we should hold that the court ought to have instructed the jury, as matter of law, that the paper was, within the meaning of the statute, obscene, lewd, and lascivious, it would not follow that the judg-. ment should, for that reason, be reversed, because it is clear that no injury came to the defendant by submitting the question of the character of the paper to the jury. But it is proper to add that it was competent for the court below, in its discretion, and even if it had been inclined to regard the paper as obscene, lewd, and lascivious, to submit to the jury the general question of the nature of the paper, accompanied by instructions indicating the principles or rules by which they should be guided in determining what was an obscene,, lewd, or lascivious paper within the contemplation of the statute under which the indictment was framed. That was what the court did when it charged the jury that “ the test of obscenity is whether the tendency of the matter is to deprave and corrupt the morals of those whose minds are open to such influence and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.” “Would it,” the court said, “suggest or convey lewd thoughts and lascivious thoughts to the young and inexperienced ? ” In view of the character of the paper, as an inspection of it will instantly disclose, the test prescribed for the jury was quite as liberal as the defendant had any right to demand.
Other questions are discussed in the elaborate brief filed for the defendant. Some of them do not require notice; others were not sufficiently saved by exceptions, at the proper time, and will not, therefore, be considered or determined.
We find no error of law in the record, and the judgment is
Affirmed.