knows all secret are dark deep wells of as civilization advanced the personal oppression and of property by the lord relaxed but the frightful of the two theatres in a doubled population remained with all the evils that attend gigantic rents demanded by the from the gigantic prices required by the from the public while a market thus contracted left room but for few authors and so choked talent then the public groaning came a truly characteristic of an english official of the last generation dealing with the fine arts a in other theatres were allowed to open provided they would undertake to sell the public bad for good money and not wholesome meat we who have assumed powers we don t to our sovereign because this is a free country and he is not like us a god in wisdom we decide thus we allow you to play low or to sing rational provided the are going all the time but you must not sell good sense still less the of mind in second rate theatres your are low it is a moral and therefore a legal duty to keep them low and not bring them and the fine arts together to high things and raise low minds keep things and men in their places whatever is is right especially if at last by the mercy of heaven an artist strayed into the british house of he soon obtained a select committee to examine dramatic literature the blue book lies before me forty one authors actors and are here ned on oath and every interest fairly represented and severely cross examined oa the evidence thus collected the committee reported to the house that there was a real decline in the literature of the stage and the taste of the public for theatrical performances and that the main causes were he eighth the administration of the laws a the slender encouragement afforded to literary talent to devote its labours to the stage and the want of better as to the number and distribution of theatres in respect to the exclusive privileges claimed bj the two theatres it appears st that such privileges have neither preserved the dignity of the drama nor been of much advantage to the of those theatres in regard to dramatic literature an author at present is subjected to hardship and injustice and the of protection afforded to his labours when compared even with that granted to authors in any other branch of letters seems alone sufficient to divert the ambition of eminent and successful writers firom that department of intellectual exertion the sworn evidence fully bears out the report st it was sworn that for some years the good old system of an author according to his merit by the of the third sixth ninth nights had been dis continued here and pieces purchased instead generally for a very low price thus merit was with that the author was deliberately and habitually out of his pieces sometimes in london in the country nearly always mr that he produced in london at a minor theatre lane theatre one of the of the legitimate sent and stole this piece an one played it in the teeth of the author and laughed at the idea of any author s dramatic work being property like a carpenter s at one end of the stick at the other what did you receive for it i was cheated of it altogether i never got but for it the next answer explains that in consequence of the and its success the manager had engaged him to write a see the evidence of and and all the authors especially and the eighth for the theatre at a week but that was not buying the piece on the contrary was worth a great deal more than a week to the theatre was it published not till two applied to me each to protect himself against the other neither of them having any right to publish it at all n b drowning thieves catch at a straw the author s rights mr played the piece in defiance of you yes and made money by it a great deal of money he brought out madame in it he paid her i ll be bound it is only the benefactor creator and maker of all these who is from generation to generation and from age to this is the same that stole a play of s and played it in defiance of the author s and s rights in an was applied for v sent the question to law the five judges decided refuse the they did not give their reasons which is most unusual in a case a whole class of the community but the fact is they dared not give their reasons the fraud was a thing to be done but not to be justified on any principle of law that would bear a general application therefore the court became a secret silent to work the silent eats the most authors a they would have respected because that is a low kind of personal property but lord s child was by law during its period of existence the highest kind of personal property how could they with it f and the man that created the property how could any human feeling for him enter their breasts neither bob nor his in those five and on the judgment seat were empty of human kindness in general but here the same cause the judges hearts that had the actor s heart the writer was their intellectual superior these five with law and morality soon found pupils to carry their principles into practice they say give a rogue an inch and he will take an ell the eighth that is not true in give an author half an inch and he never has failed to take the whole piece in any age or land those five author and lord 