pecksniffery

Three years before his pictures moved, Tally’s “Mutoscope” parlors, with their flipbook illusion of the motion of not-quite-unclad women, had attracted official pecksniffery over their depraved undoing of male morals.

Hall was Pecksniff; the "Art Union" was "The Pecksniffery;" and Punch courted the libel action which Hall threatened but failed to bring.

As a matter of fact, there have been intermittent rebellions against the prevailing pecksniffery and sentimentality ever since the days of Irving and Hawthorne.