The Press.
London, England, 1853-06-25 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

Here I saw the first condor, the giant vulture of the
Cordilleras, hovering just above our heads. It altered its
course in descending, and dew (over towards the other aide
of the hollow. which seemed to mu hardly half a mile dis-
tant, but the bird became smaller and smaller, appearing
at last not much larger than a crow, long before the
passage was crossed. Then I felt more than saw the vast-
ness of these mountains, and 1 was going to stop my mule,
to have a fairer view, when a call from my guide wanted me
to beware and look well to my path.
The path, indeed, had become so narrow that it seemed
to me, as it wound itself round a projecting rock, abso-
lutely to terminate. I could see nothing more than a
thin light streak, as if drawu with a piece of chalk, and I
could not believe that this was our path. The rock round
which it went did not show the least cut or notch where
even a goat could have planted its feet, let alone our
clumsy mules. The little crumbling pieces of stone
which our mules hoofs kicked over the precipice made
me sensible of the danger, falling straight down to a depth
that my blood froze to think of.
lint this was nut the place to stop at ; and 1 observed
:losely the cautious manner in which my guide raised him-
*elf in his right stirrup, not doubting that we were now at
the spot of which he had told me before, and where mules
and riders were often thrown over. 1 was therefore careful
not to irritate my mule ut a place where it certainly knew
better how to go than I did—accidents having happened
from travellers pulling their bridles at the wrong tune.
My guide went on very coolly along a trail where mules
bad to keep the very edge of the precipice. Mules fte-
opwittly carry a load over this track, when they are very
careful not to knock against the overhanging ruck, as the
least push would send them over the precipice. Our mules,
it is true, had no load, but they were accustomed to car-
rying one,and therefore kept the extreme edo.,w, to my great
discomposure. lint I left it entirely to its own instinct,
only lifting my lett foot in the stirrup as 1 saw the vaqui-
auto do, so that in case of an accident 1 might throw my.
self off its back, and cling to the rock.
lint why, the reader may ask, did you not get off the mule
at once, and pass dangerous places on foot ? Simply, my
reader, in the first place, because the danger is the same
for many wiles ; and secondly, because those men who peas
their lives in leading travellens over these mountains know
best where to walk and where to ride, and I followed the
example my guide set me. Nor, to tell the truth, *lid 1 at
the moment think of anything but my mule, as he moved
slowly step by step round the yawning abyss, with twareely
three inches to spare on either side. As we proceeded,
the path got still narrower, the abyss seemed deeper, and,
looking down once, between the mule's side and my stir-
nips, I saw below in the deeßbollow a perfect heap of ske-
letons, mules that must have tumbled down since the last
flod, or their bones would have been washed away. In my
horror I forgot the warning of the %sequisite, and grasping
the reins of my lt, tried to tent it away from that edge,
which seemed to me as if it must crumble beneath its next
step. My imprudence was near being fatal to me, foe,
turning the head of my mule away from the precipice it
lost itsisure footing, stepped aside, and, striking the saddle-
hags against the rawk, it stumbled forward, and—nu, dear
reader, no such thing—we did not nimble. The mule
planted its fore hoofs on a firm part of the crumbling ledge,
elk lifted itself up again, just as a smell piece of stone,
loosened by the effort, fell noiselessly from the path, and,
springing from under us, toppled ever, anal stniek long
'Memento with a doll hollow sound into the deep.
I need not too ashamed to say that this little incident
made one thimble, and I thought the blond became stag-
nant in my veins. lint. mules are splendid animate for
such a route ; and, whether for the sake of their rider air
their town, they proceed with the utnitost *cauti ,as I had
now learnt from experience. From that moment I left my
mule to do as he pleased, anal it carried me safely over.
.lust at the end of the passage where the path again turned
round a nick, which hid the guide from view, I reached a
Know-drift, or rather a ledge of about ten or twelve pact*,
where a quantity of snow had drifted from a narrow gulch ;
and a space not six inches in width, and even that sloping
down, was the only footing left. Even the mule 110 W came
to a stand ; 1 pressed his thinks with my heels to urge him
011, but the two peons, who came close behind, called to ma)
to alight here, and not to attempt to pass that place in the
saddle. At the game time the guide appested on the other
side of the rock, anal 1 saw that he was on foot ; but how
to get down on such a phew was a difficulty. lln the left
side I should have stepped down at least a couple of hun-
dred feet; theref ore- I must try the other. Throwing my
lag with a sudden jerk over the inulea neck, I slipped
down against the rock, the mule pressing as hard against
me as itcould to prevent my 'welling it down the preripitie.
I dodged beneath his head, and with the bridle grouped in
my hand, led the way over the snow-drift.
At the Californian diggings M. Crerstaecker
arrived in due tune, and, like the great mAjority,
drew a blank in that lottery. The time had
long been past, even upon his arrival there,
for making fortunes in a week or two by digging.
By speculation it is still, and always will be,
posstbie. But so it is everywhere else. In
time, however, our author looks forward to a
steadier, more regular, and' more continuous
method of working, and then, " if they stick to
work perseveringly and industriously, through
hard work it be, they will earn good wages."
From San Francisco to Honolulu—from
Honolulu to Sydney—we regret that our space
will not allow us to follow M. Gerstaecker to
these points, or to accompany him in his ad-
venturous attempt to make his way to Adelaide
by the Murray river, an attempt beset by diffi-
culties which no European has as yet overcome.

185

To Adelaide, however, M. Gerstaecker did
get, though ho wan obliged to abandon the
Murray and make his way through the bush.
Making no great stay there, he proceeded to
Java, and his account of these sunny coasts,
with their nodding cocoas and waving palm
c►ow►►s, their varied and picturesque denizens,
form, to our thinking, the most attractive part
of the book. There is also a chapter on Japan.
with some shrewd guessing at the issue of the
American attempts to get a footing there,
which we had thought of extracting for the
info►mation of our readers, but we prefer the
following as a specimen, a favourable one, of
M. Gerstaeeker's manner of telling us what
he has seen :

Taking a walk one day through the Chinese quarters•-••
and I liked to be there, for I saw and learned more in that
crowded and busy place than anywhere else—l met an
old wrinkled fellow, in a rather fantastic dress, with a lam
book or a kind of rolled mat under one arm, and a little
Write...age with two rice birds, called " inseparable)," in the
other, while that hand the arm of which carried the book
held open one of the common paper umbrellas. He was
nodding to the shopkeepers around, all of whom seemed to
know hint ; and rolling through the street, striving to get
his tat body along in the meet commodious manner, yet
looking about him searchingly out of his small, grey, and
lively, ay, cunning, eyes. He wore a swill black cap, with
a black button upon it, and a tremendous tail swinging
down behind. A bniwn•red overiaeket, and light blue and
very wide pantaloons, covered his outer man, and an enor-
mous pair of Asses were MIMI his feet. Just when he bad
1,00,44 me, he sat down upon a pile of lumber lying there,
and a crowd soon collecting about him, he put his book be-
side him and the cage on the top of it. The two little
birds in it seemed very hungry ; they were fluttering shout
unceasingly, and had only some
,water in their cage, but
not a grain of anything to feed upon. He had not sat
them+ unit minute, when a young woman, passing through
the crowd, to which I now also lielongeol,aaked him some-
thing in the Malay language I did not understand. She
most certainly came from the mountains, having the sorroise
tied round her hire—not over the breasts, as the women of
the lower hula, in a very ungainly fashion, have it—and
another cloth threw,' loosely over her left shoulder. The
old fellow, after listening to her words, sat ruminating a
good while upon the weed with his finger upon his nose,
and looking steadily down. The crowd around moved not,
you could have lutiwil a pin imp, and the eyes of the
young WOMMI glistened in painful expectation. Only a
couple of young Chinese, eiweleioi young dogs, who do hot
believe in anything neither upon nor 'shove the earth,
whined et each other, and shook their tails. At last the "wise
man " leek the book or case upon his lap, and after palling
out of it a quantity of pieces of pasteboard, with a eolonred
drawing upon one side, he opened slowly one part of the
nage (this having a partition in the middle, disidhig the
whole cage in two equal halves), and one bird came quickly
out. Spreading out the cards, upon which the well-taught
little creator' jumped, the old man spoke a few worth to it
—I believe in Chinese—end the bird °aught first MP CAM
and pulled it about half up, and theut a second one in the
same manner ; after which exploit, knowing now it had
done enough, it. juniptsl upon its master's hand.
The young woman was standing in the meantime in run
and anxious expectation of the result; her eyes darting
from the prophet to the two cards which were to tell her
the fate most likely of a loved person; and from the cards
again to the eyes. of the prophet, who, however, seemed not
in the leant to think of her, but, speaking a few friendly
sonde to thelbird, feel it with Home grains of rice, and ,only
them putting it heck again into its cage, took up the
ominous cards and turned them.
The one ietnre, with rather coarse Mourn, represented
a dark suid lonesome part of some thicket, with the trunk
of a broken-down eiwissuut.tree; the other, a man attacked
by a tiger. The tiger, standing on his hind Irge, opened
his jaws at the man, while he, holding the card se ready to
strike in his right hand, stretched nut his left elbow, as to
ward off with it the nosh of his furious enemy.
" Matjan! matjan kassiang I" the bystanders pitifltlly
exidalnwil awl the wise nor, after looking a weed while at
the pietism's, pulled sit Ad and ninelentwd hook, with
Chinese characters, out of his pocket, and commenced
turning its leaves, while the woman's eyes hung in speech-
bv4s fear npon his bpi. At last he was ready to translate
the derision of fate into Malay; and though I could not
uuderstand what he said, as he ne', too many well I did
not. know, there was mu doubt that his prophecy had been a
feithful one for sorrow, for, while he read, many a how mur-
mured " kaesiimg"—an expression of the deepest pity with
the natives, and really not to lee translated in its powerful
awl heartfelt meaning—parted the lips of the multitude
aronnil. The woman did not say a wend—appailqady she
did not even breathe, only with quick and restless hand she
held out to the Chinese—who counted the pieces carefully
—is handful of copper &its, 'dipped out of the ring, which
/*mil willingly for leer, and disappeared with quick steps
a few xeconds afterwards in one of the numberless by
streets ; while that nweal of a Chinon.., who had filled a pare
and true heart with sorrow and pain ant of avarice or sow
, took op his traps and rolled, with a fat benevolent
look, down the street again.

A Treatise on the La►r, and Practice relating to
Letters Patent fi►r Inventions. By J. Paxton
Norman, Esq. London : Butterworth.
Iv inan has any natural rights beyond the free
use of his own physical, intellectual, and moral

t

powers, it would certainly appear that an in-
ventor has a natural right to the whole profit
) be derived from a useful embodiment of his
invention. The author of the book before us
restricts this natural right to that of " exer-
cising his own invention freely," Any reference
t.) abstract natural rights seems always some-
what absurd in the midst of an old civilised
society like ours, because we must long since
practically have come to some arrangement
between the natural rights of individuals and
the claims of the community. But in the pre-
sent instance such reference is not altogether
needless, when we find Mr. Ricardo, and
others in the House of Commons, denouncing
the whole system of protecting inventors as
bad and founded in error, and laying it down
that all legislation on the matter should pro-
ceed upon the principle of obstructing and not
facilitating grants of patents. Such opinions
are to be negatived by showing that inventors
have so strong a sense of their natural right to
protection that they would cease to invent,
or at least to make their inventions public, if
protection were denied ; and in that ease the
community would suffer. It is of course im-
possible to have any peculiar property in a mere
now idea or invention, for, from its very na-
ture, when once uttered or published it becomes
the common property of all. In order that it
may become capable of being appropriated it
must be embodied ; and this embodiment may
be either a formal description or expression of
it, as in a book ; or it may be in a thing made
or manufactured, and involving the new idea
or invention as its essential characteristic.
The former kind of " embodiment" is the sub-
ject of the Law of Copyright, the latter of the
I'atent Laws.

The law of England proceeds upon the prim
ciple of purchasing now inventions for the use
of the public at the price of granting to in-
ventors a monopoly of all the profit to be
derived from their inventions for fourteen
years.
It has always been ono of the prerogatives
of the Crown to grant exclusive privileges
under the Great Seal ; but. in the act 21 James
1., c. 3, whereby certain monopolies were ren-
dered void, an express exception was made in
the case of " letters patent and grants of pri
vilege for the term of fourteen years or under
of the sole working or making of any
manner of new manufacture within this realm
to the true and first inventors of such manu-
factures so as they be not contrary to
law or mischievous to the State, by raising
prices of commodities at home, or hurt of
trade, or generally inconvenient." In the
letters patent is a proviso that they shall be
come void if the inventor " shall not particularly
describe and ascertain the nature of the inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, by an instrument in writing
to be enrolled in the High Court of Chancery."
A patentee, therefore, must be the true and
first inventor of a new and useful invention, the
nature and manner of perfimniny which he must
particularly describe and ascertain. In these
respects the law still remains the same ; but
the recent act, 15 and 10 Vic., e. has made
material alterations in the manner and cost of
obtaining letters patent. Formerly three pa-
tents were necessary for the United Kingdom ;
one is now sufficient. Formerly the protection
dated from the day of sealing the patent ; now
the sealing and protection date from the day
of application. Great delay and expense were
caused by opponents un(Ler the old caveat
system ; that system is now abolished, and the
law officer is enabled openly to investigate the
eases of rival inventors without injury to either.
The plan of provisional specification also
enables inventors without danger to make ex-
periments and perfect their inventions. There
is only one office where the business is con
ducted ; formerly there were several. Pro-
vision is also made for a complete publication
and classification of specifications, and facilities
are afforded for the inspection of all docu-
ments. But not the least gain under the new
law is on the cost of patents. Formerly 3001.
hardly covered the fees and stamps necessary
to obtain patents in the three countries ; now
the same may be obtained for 25/. down ;
501. at the end of three years, supposing the
patentee finds it worth while to renew his pro
teal= ; and 1001. at the end of the seventh

THE PRESS.

year. Very many other beneficial alterations
are made, which we have not space even to
mention.

Several new works, editions of the act,
and new editions of old books, have appeared
on the new Patent Law. Mr. Norman's book
is perhaps the best, in so far as it gives a
succinct account of the whole subject. It
cannot lay claim to any originality either in
matter or mode of treatment; and the eases
under the act have been so few that no new
matter of that kind could be given. It con-
tains no suggestions as to points likely to arise
upon the construction of the act, &c. We
should like to have seen some reference to the
advisability or the reverse of making the pro-
visional specification public, after protection
granted ; us to the necessity or non-necessity
of a preliminary examination by a board of
examiners; and as to the consistency of the
rule of the law officers with the words of the
act, when the former requires that it shall
" describe the means, &e."

One thing in the book we especially object
to, and that is the recklessness of the references
to all sorts of cases decided by all sorts of
persons, in all sorts of courts, and reported in
all sorts of reports and text-books. A hundred
well-selected eases are more than sufficient to
teach the whole Law of Patents. Nisi Prius
reports should never be referred to, whereas
Mr. Norman quotes even the reports of the
'Times. Upon the whole, we recommend the
work as good, poi table, and cheap.