The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-09 00:00:00

SATU'RDAY EVENING, AUGUST 9, 1851.

ENGLISH AND CAMBRIAN L 1 FE
ASSURANCE SOCIETY.
The first annual meeting of this company was held
at the office, New Bridge-street, en Saturday-, the
26th July last ; G. M. Murray, DT, occupied the
chair.
Mr. C. W. BEVAN, the resident manager, read the
report and balance-sheet :
The directors have much pleasure in meeting the
share and policy holders on this the first annul general
mueting of the society, aid although a period of scarcely
eight months has elapsed from the date of the issuing of
the first policy by the beard an amount of business has
been done almost unprecedented in the history of in-
surance societies.
The number of proposals received up to the 12th
instant has been 432, amounting to 99,4151., of which
273 have been accepted and completed, averaging
2591., and assuring... .C 70,695 0 0
29 ditto, ditto, but nat
completed ..
62 have been declined cr
withdrawn
68 under c:Nisideration... 10,290 0 0
0 0
243 as above

4,650%:0 0

The society's income to the present time is 2,3281. ls.
These results cannot fail to be h,ghly gratifying to
the proprietary, and augur well for the suture prospects
of the society.
The directors, under the powers contained in their
deed of settlement, deemed it prudent, in D,cember last,
to suspend the fire department of the society's tusiness,
and accordingly the ri,lts (with the exception of two)
were transferred to a highly respectable office, for which
the society is still liable. When the proper period ar-
rives, the directors will ask the sanction of the share-
holders to resume this department of business, of which
due notice will be given.
The directors point with much satisfaction to the an-
nexed report of the auditors, containing the ~balances-
heet, and the state of the society's affairs, and on com-
paring the preliminary and working expenses with those
of other offices, have reason to congratulate the share-
holders on their comparative smallness in amount.
Your directors have devoted their attention to the
establishment of local branches in favourable districts of
the United Kingdom, and have succeeded in forming a
highly•respectable and influential branch in the city of
Norwich, which cannot fail to be productive of the most
beneficial results in extending the business of the society.
The directors have further to congratulate the pro-
prietary on having secured the lease of the valuable pre-
raises now occupied by the society at a very low rental;
and although a considerable sum has been expended in
the necessary alterations, it now forms a valuable asset
in the society's balance-sheet.
Your directors are happy to report that, up to this
date, no claims have fallen in by reason of death, and no
losses have been sustained in the loan department.
The directors recommend that a dividend at the rate
of five per cent., up to the 30th of April last, be paid
to the shareholders upon the amount of their respective
shares.
The following directors, viz., G. M. Murray, Esq.,
William Whitelock, Esq., and Daniel Wane, Esq., retire
by rotation, and being eligible for re-election, offer them-
selves accordingly.
The following auditors also retire, and being eligible,
likewise offer themselves for re-election, viz., R. L. Mid-
dlemist, Esq., G. H. Hodges, Esq., B. Williams, Esq.,
and John Miller, Esq., a duly qualified policy-holder,
offers himself to fill up the vacancy in the list of auditors,
and is recommended by the board.
By order of the board,
GEORGE M. illußßAt,lChairman.

July 14th, 1851.
The CHAIRMAN, in proposing the adoption of the
report, observed that it was a matter for congratula-
tion that the company bad not sustained any loss
either from the dropping of lives, or in its loan de-
partment. By great energy and perseverance they
had been enabled to issue a large number of policies,
and to obtain an income of a highly satisfactory
amount, and which there was every prospect of being
materially augmented. The directors, at the outset
of the office had deemed it well to drop the fire de-
partment, on account of the great risk of that kind of
business, having transferred its few fire policies to
another. The office had had a great many difficulties to
contend with, but the facts stated in the balance-sheet,
exhibiting the amount of business transacted, showed,
he thought, an unexampled amount of business to have
been transacted by so young an office. They had
been unf'
or'tunate in establishing a number of excel-
lent agencies. They had been very fortunate in the
selection of a board or agency at Norwich, as already
a number of shares had been taken up, and sixty-
eight policies issued. If they were thus encouraged,
they should extend their agencies into other parts of
the country. The office, they would see, was situated
in an excelleu t position, and the lease of the premises
had been obteined on very advantageous terms—the
rent not being more than 1001. a year, and the value
of the lease was such that, with the great improve-
ments that had been made, it would realise, if sold, a
premium of 2,0001.; indeed, they could get, he
had no doubt, .300/. a year for the eligible premises
they occupied. With respect to the dividend, he
had to state that the directors conceived that it
would not be well, in the infancy of the office, to
declare a dividend, in order that the funds might
be augmented; but as the deed provided that a
dividend of 51. per cent. upon the paid-up capital
should be declared, the directors had much plea-
sure in doing so, for it would not have been
advisable to have disappointed the shareholders, nor
to have contravened the terms prescribed in the
original prospectus.--(Hear, hear.) With respect to
the sum of 500/. mentioned in the balance-sheet as
having been nppropria ted to the directors for their
services, it was well he should mention that they
were empowered to take the money, and when the
preliminary expenses were being passed it had been
classed among them. They had not, however, taken
the money ; the item was entirely subject to the
approval or disapprovel of the shareholders, and
was put down for their consideration. If voted to
them they should take it out in shares. They
must not, however, forget that the directors had
devoted a great deal of attention to the affairs of the
office for which they had not charged a farthing,
and surely they could not expect that men of
business would come day after day into the City
and attend zealously to their affairs without reward.
—(Hear.) The office had been at considerable ex-
pense in its formation, for competition in life assur-
ance business was now so keen that much money
could not be made unless a good deal of money was
expended. It was well perhaps to remark that the
office derived the full credit of having been the first to
put life assurance within the reach of the working-
classes, by the establishment of various branch offices
for receiving the subscriptions of these classes in
small payments.. He appealed to the shareholders and
policy holders to exert themselves to extend the busi-
ness of the office, and to consolidate it.—(Bear,
hear.) Four-fifths of the entire profits belonged to
the policy-holder, so that it was to their interest to
do their best to promote the welfare of the office. The
prosperity of the office depended in a great measure
upon the shareholders and policy-holders, and he
trusted they would all join in a " strong pull, a long
pull, and a pull altogether."—(Cheers.)
A discussion then ensued, in which Mr. Lawrence
(of the Engineers' Life Assurance Company), Mr.
Sheridan (of the Times Life Assurance Company),
and others took part with respect to matters in the
report and balance-sheet. At length a committee was
appointed to consider the amount of compensation to
which Mr. A. li. Smith, formerly the solicitor, was
entitled for procuring the eligible premises occupied
by the society, and to consider the point with respect
to the remuneration of the directors for their past ser-
vices.
Mr. BEVAN, the manager, drew attention to the
fact that when he joined the office but ten policies
had been issued ; whereas there were now nearly 300.
He did not mention this in order to claim any particu-
lar merit to himself ; but to mention the fact that
both himself and the other officers were badly remu-
nerated in comparison with the officers of other com-
panies which had not transacted, and did not transact
a larger or more promising amount
of business.
Throwing as he did his whole energies into the com-
pany, and being determined to promote its increased
'success, so that the office might take a proud position
among the assurance offices of the metropolis, he
trusted that his endeavours would be met. in a fair
and liberal spirit by the directors and proppetors, and
that the proprietors would take care that if he served
them well that be should not be removed from his
office without due and sufficient reason. He asked
for this security, because it often happened that those
who expended their best energies in raising a public
company to a position of considerable greatness were
put aside without any just or sufficient reason.
A resolution was then passed, recommending the
directors to increase the salaries of the manager and
the other officers. A resolution was also passed to
the effect that the directors should have full power to
suspend any officers for improper conduct, but that
they should not be dismissed without the approval of
a special meeting, to be called to consider the matter.
The report and balance-sheet was adopted, with the
exception of the matter referred to the consideration
of the committee. The retiring directors and au-
ditors were reelected, and a vote of thanks awarded
to them for their services.
A motion, awarding a vote of thanks to Mr. Bevan,
the manager, and the other executive officers of the
society, was then passed, on the motion of Mr. Fen-
Ping, of Fenning's Wharf, who took occasion to
highly compliment the great and unwearied exertions
of the manager, Mr. Bevan, to promote the prosperity
and welfare of the office. His exertions were beyond
all praise. The secretary, too, had served the society
very efficiently.
The meeting then separated.

THE BISHOP or CLIFTON.—We hear that, irnme-,
diately after Miss Talbot's marriage, Bishop Hendren was
chasseed. The fact is, the Doctor did not manage that busi-
ness so adroitly as he ought to have done, especially when
we regard the large amount of money there was at stake.
He has, consequently, retired, and in his place Dr. Burgess of
Monmouthshire, has been appointed. The new bishop will
roicle at Privr-part, near Datn....Acivertiser.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
TINIES.—It has of late been .several times remarked
that the redoubled oppression, both moral and political,
which hangs, with the solitary exception of Piedmont,
over till parts of Italy, is closely connected with the in-
creased pretensions and aggressive spirit manifested in
ecclesiastical affairs by the Court of Rome since the
restoration of the present Pontiff. For this
extension of the Papal authority is by no
means confined to the assumption of hierarchical
rights in countries long detached from the Romish See.
It is, on the contrary, directed with even greater activity
and success against the liberties of the Church and the
joint rights of the civil power in States altogether Ca-
tholic; and the result of some of the recent measures of
the Papal Government is to assert and exercise a power
which never was conceded by the Italian Governments in
the most devout ages of the Catholic faith, and before
the schism had been declared between the authority
of the Pupe and the great principles of human freedom.
Our attention is once more recalled to this subject by
the publication of the concordat signed on the 25th of
April of the present year between the Papal See and
the Government of Tuscany; for the increasing strin-
gency of the provisions now exacted by the Church
not only demonstrates the deplorable and abject sub.
serviency of the civil power to the common leers ex-
cited by the revolution, but proses the general ten-
dency of the Church in this age to claim a license it
entirely rouses to others, to place itself above the law,
and to efface the limitations which were impost d on its
powers by the prudence and energy of Sovereigns in
ages termed less liberal endless enlightened than our own.
Tee papers relating to Tuscany in the volume recently
reprinted for Parliament with reference to the regula-
tion of Catholics by foreign Governments, officially in-
form us that ever since the time of the Florentine Re-
public the Tuscan Government had been extremely
watchful that no authority whatever, particularly that of
Rome, should infringe on its sovereign rights. To this
end no act or decision was allowed to be carried into
effect in the Tuscan territory without the license of the
Seignory; nor could any ecclesiastical living or dignity
be taken possession of without similar permission from
the Government. A law of mortmain limited the pos-
sessions of the Church, the jurisdiction of the epis-
copal courts was transferred to the civil tribunals, and
every ecclesiastic was made subject to the judical au-
thority of civil magistrates. The Inquisition was also
summarily abolished by Leopold 11. iu 1782, and by a
circular of 1777 the subjects of Tuscany were for-
bidden to have recourse to Rcme without the permis-
sion of their ewn Government ; nor even with that
permission were they dispensed from obtaining the
Regium Exequatur for every bull, brief, or Pontifical
rescript; though a distinction was made between the
briefs and rescripts which have an influence on
the civil state, and those which interest only
the conscience of individuals by spiritual dis-
pensation or absolution. It was even provided
by one of these Leopoldine laws, as they were
termed, that nothing should be read during meals
in the refectories of convents but the Scriptures in the
vulgar tongue. These laws were revived after the French
invasion, and have remained in force till a recent period.
They supply abundant evidence of the determination of
the Tuscan Government to prohibit, not by negotiation
with Rome, but of its own authority and mere motion,
every excess of foreign jurisdiction in ecclesiastical
affairs. We live, however, it seems, in different times,
and the Court of Rome is enabled in 1851 to exact con-
ditions from independent Governments which they dis-
dained to listen to in the last century. No sooner was the
Grand Duke of Tuscany restored, and M. Baldasseroni
brought back to the Ministry, than a negotiation was set
on foot for a concordat, which was eventually signed
by that Minister and Cardinal Antonelli on the 25th
of April, and gazetted in the Tuscan &Zonitore of the
sth of July. The object of this treaty is declared by the
preamble to be to put the laws of Tuscany in harmony
with the laws of the Church; for this purpose it is sti-
pulated absolutely that the ecclesiastical authority shall
encounter no obstacle in the exercise of its functions,
but that the civil authority will lend the Church the
support necessary for the exercise of episcopal power.
The bishops are free to publish what they please
in relation to their ministry. The ordinaries retain the
exclusive censorshilOover ecclesiastical publications, and
the bishops preserve their whole authority to restrain
the faithful from the perusal of books contrary to reli-
gion and morality. The bishops and their flocks are
free to communicate directly with the holy See. All
causes, spiritual and ecclesiastical, belong exclu-
sively to the judgment of the ecclesiastical autho-
rity according to the sacred canons, though ecclesi-
astics may be tried for civil offences by the civil courts.
The property of the Church and benefices are to be
freely administered by the bishops and clergy, in
obedience to the canon law. Upon questions relat
ing to pious bequests, or changes in ecclesiastical
property, the spiritual and civil powers shall concur
to obtain the assent of the Holy See, saving the
rights of the bishops to exert the powers conferred
upon them by the Most Holy Council of Trent.
This instrument, of which we have here given a brief
but faithful description, completely establishes, for the
first time since the very existence of Florence, the sub-
jection of the State to the Church in all spiritual mat-
ters, or all that may be called so. It gives the bishops
power to enforce the orders, subject to no control,
which they may receive from Rome. It arms them
with a religious censorship of books and opinions; and
it recognizes the Canon Law, irrespective of the laws of
the land, as the sole disposer of Church property,
under the sanction of the Papal See. Such conces-
sions amount to a real abdication of most important
sovereign rights, handed down by ihe Seignory of Flo-
rence, defended by the Medici, and c,.mpleted by Leopold
II.; and they demonstrate in an authentic form to what
extent Rome is even now prepared to carry her domi-
nion over a contemptible Government and an enslaved
people. The temporal power, which is the natural guar-
dian of these rights, has betrayed its trust, and it con-
spires with the foreign authority of the Romish Church
to complete the destruction of all freedom of thought
and independence of life amongst the people. In such a
state we are net surprised to learn that Count Guieciar-
dini has lately been condemned to prison and exile for
reading the Bible to his friends; and that even the ex-
ercise of public worship by the English residents in
Florence has been made the subject of obstruction and
persecution by the Government. Three years ago, or
little more, Tuscany was the happiest and best-governed
portion of Italy, and the present Grand Duke, though defi-
cient in character and energy, was justly in possession of
the confidence and affection of his subj ects. Those qualities
did not protect him from the violence of the Democratic
party, and he was driven from his dominions as summa-
rily as the bigotted Duke of Modena or the foolish Prince
of Parma. A more honest popular movement afterwards
recalled the Grand Duke to power, but he unhappily
returned entirely subject to the predominant system of
Austrian military repression, and the more subtle domi-
nation of Rome. Between Vienna and the Vatican the
independence of the minor States of Italy is extin-
guished ; and the Tuscan Government has been
driven into the very policy for which it suffered
unjustly in 1849. That is the ordinary result of
that conflict in Italy between two extreme parties,
which limits the experiment of rational government
to the dominions 'of the King of Sardinia, and even
there endangers its ultimate success. Because we
regard with aversion the evils of one extreme, we
are not the more tempted to tolerate the evils of the
other. A government of fanatics and enthusiasts who
speculate on the delusions of the people, and violate in
the name of freedom the laws and authority essential to
every Christian state, is a bad exchange even for such
governments as we now witness relying for support on
their prisons, their priests, their police, and on foreign
armies; Between such alternatives, that appears the
worst which happens for the time to be most powerful;
for both are incapable of the just and moderate exercise
of power. Those of our own countrymen who are led
by their natural indignation at the present state of Italy
to encourage the plots and schemes of the Indian demo-
:rats are misled by that generous but ill-informed sym-
pathy which may always be easily kindled amongst us.
For those democratic leaders are as much the enemies of
the constitutional Government of Piedmont as they are
of the Pope and the King of Naples. Indeed, they pre-
fer the violent absolutism of the latter to the hospitable
toleration of the Court of Turin, because they know it is
playing their game. A large portion of these very ex-
cesses are due to the indiscriminate hatred they have
absurdly proclaimed of all government, good or bad;
and we know not which is the greatest curse to Italy,
the foreign armies that oppress her, or the Italian fugi-
tives scattered over Europe to agitate, to lure, and some-
times to invade their country, which only knows them in
her days of anarchy and by the ruins they leave behind
them.
ADVERTISER—Mr. Gladstone's letter to Lord
Aberdeen on the treatment of a Neapolitan gentleman
in Pius the Ninth's prisons, in Rome itself, disclose
horrors:to which parallels can be found only in the nar-
ratives of captivity among the Algerines in their pira-
tical days; of the British prisoners in the Black Hole
of Calcutta; of the merchants and mariners tortured in
Batavia; and of Jews, Protestants, and wealthy Roman
Catholics, immured in the inquisitions of Valladolid,
Goa, Madrid, Lisbon, and Rome, in the darkest ages.
We are taught by the highest authority that a tree is to
be known by its fruit. If the very same effects are pro-
duced by the alleged Christianity of the Papacy, as by
the real Mahomedanism of the Algerine sea robber and
the savage slaughterer of the Mabrattas, in what respects
do they differ, save in the greater or less duration and
intensity of the tortures which they inflict? The cells in
the gaols belonging to his Holiness, the self-styled
" Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth," are said to be 8 feet
11 inches in length, 7 feet 7 inches in breadth, and 7
feet 10 inches in height, and each contains two prisoners,
although the air in that space is altogether insuffi-
cient for one. When it is considered that at this time
of the year the ordinary heat of Rome is 99 degrees of
Fahrenheit, while at Algiers it is 87, and in Calcutta
and Batavia 97, we obtain a further exemplification of
the rule for discovering the tree by its fruit. It neces-
sarily follows, that cruelties which the word has never
ceased to execrate in the unbelievers, are exceeded by
the head of the Roman Catholic Church. His gaolers,
too, are mercifully invested with the privilege of inflict-
ing severe floggings at pleasure for slight offences, or of
chaining the victims of pontifical cruelty with a weight
of iron, which incapacitates them from moving. The
consequences are easily foreseen ; madness, suicide, and
eenft
v
haunmdanthetreraattme
mor-
pri-
soners are sometimes stared to d Six died of
taatltietmy piss ahtigshui.cidßP'ssairdeesfrethcliusenitn,
starvation within a few days, two wereeath. put in chains for
attempting, suicide, and two were carried to the mad-
house raving, and in a hopeless state. " I protest," says
the patriot, Father Gavazzi, "I have more respect for
the Grand Llama of Thibet, as a more excusable object
of blunt, downright homage from congenial and kindred
barbarians, than for such a grim jumble of carnifes and
hangman and high priest, as the present emu-
pantPtifx°noefihe Vatican and the Castle of St. Angelo (the
arched causeway connecting palace and Filen has just

been rebuilt), presents to the nineteenth century. Must
the barque of Peter be rowed by galley slaves? Must the
fisherman's ring be the signet to the death warrant?
Must the functions cf Nero be performed by the succes-
sor of his supposed victim? They show you in Rome
the Mamertino dungeon, where Catiline's confederates
were immured; whore Jagurtha, Zaaobia, and a hest of
illustrious prisoners, were let down. Peter, they say,
was thrown into that monumental cavity at the foot of
the Capitol; and the memory of minor captives is
merged in the monopoly of marvel which that circum-
stance establishes for this prison-hole." Why has the
successor of the Apostles united his Palace to the Black
Holes by a covered passage, if it be not to transport un-
fortunate persons, who have excited his suspicions,
secretly into the oubliettes of St. Angelo, and to afford
him the convenience of witnessing and gloating in per-
son over their sufferings? Whether this man of blood,
who has attempted to foist his rule over England, found
or re-established the Roman Inquisition, we know not;
but Dr. Achilli is an illustrious instance that he makes
use of its dungeons; and what they are, we know
from the discoveries made by the French soldiers
in 1795. Skeletons were found that had been im-
mured,
when living men and ivemsn, within
the massive walls ; numerous traps for pri-
vate executions, and deep wells containing quick
lime and hall-consumed bones. And when again, in
IS4S, Rome was besieged and the Pope expelled, the
bones of thousands of victims, who bad been secretly
put to death, were discovered.
This is the religion that
was to displace Christianity, as it is practised by English-
men; this is the man who was to rule the province of
England. We do not refer to the dark ages of Popery,
but exhibit it as it now shows itself in the eyes of the
world. That the fruit discovers the parent tree cannot
be doubted. Two or three weeks ago the Augsburg
Allyemeine Zeitung had the following pasauge:—
" The total absence of religious feeling among the lower
classes of the population of Rome is really horrible; add
to this, that scarcely any class whatever has the least
sympathy for the Papal Government, and the most me-
lancholy reflections will rise in the mind of every friend
of social order." The state of the popular feelings
in
Rome in regard to religion might be explained on the
ground, that the people are on the spot where Pope and
priests show by their daily actions, that they have no
real care for religion themselves, otherwise than as a
medium of pecuniary profit and temporal power. But
this argument will extend beyond the metropolis of
Roman Catholicism, and apply to the whole of
Italy. So notoriously depraved is the state of morals in
that country, and more particularly in the States of the
Church, that no attempt has been made to deny the fact
—but persons favourable to Romish tenets, like Mr.
Eustace, the author of the " Classical Tour," have con-
fessed it in seeking for palliating circumstances. " May
it not be ascribed," he asks, " to the corruptions of the
national religion, to the facility of absolution, and to
the easy purchase of indulgences?" And if it may,
what, let us ask in return, are these latter but essential
parts of the Romish religion, the very tree whose fruit
we are considering? A modern traveller relates, that at
Tivoli, a man stabbed his brother, who died in agonies
within an hour. " The murderer went to Rome, pur-
chased his pardon from the Church, and received a
written protection from a Cardinal, in consequence of
which he was walking about unconcernedly, a
second Cain, whose life was sacred." We give
one more illustration of the religion that Dr.
Wiseman was to have triumphantly carried into
Westminster Abbey. It is from " Graham's Three
Months' Residence in the Mountains East of Rome"—
" Those that have an interest with the Pope may obtain
an absolution in full from his Holiness for all the sins
they have ever committed or may choose to commit !"
And the author of" Rome in the Nineteenth Century"
says—" I have seen one of these edifying documents,
issued by the present Pope to a friend of mine. It was
most unequivocally worded." In reference to the dread
fill barbarities perpetrated by the Pope in the prison of
St. Angelo, is is obvious that unless the French autho-
ritatively interfere in behalf of his victims, the character
of their nation will be seriously compromised. Having
the power to wrest them from sacerdotal malignity, they
will become accomplices in the foul deeds now charged
upon the Pope, in the letters to Lord Aberdeen. Under
the relations of England to Rome, we hardly see how
our Government could interpose to save them. The ex-
istence of this miserable and hypocritical despotism any
longer in Europe, however, will be a crime in all the
states that have the power to crush it, but hold aloof

FOREIGN v. BRITISH AUTHO
COPYRIGHT.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Six,—The meeting at the Hanover-square Rooms
some little time ago, presided over by Sir E. B.
Lytton, Bart., at which some influential authors de-
livered their sentiments, is beginning to do its work,
by exciting a spirit of inquiry amongst those most
interested in the issue of the conflicting judgments
between the Court of Exchequer and the Court of
Error. If we were called upon to say on which aide
the sound logic, legal acumen, and just interpreta-
tion of the law preponderates, we have only to use
cur common sense in comparing the two, and there
would be no " error" about it. It is one thing to say
what is, and another to determine what should be the
law. The moral principle and the legal construction
and administration may be at issue with one another,
but let us not trust both in one set of hands ; if we
do, the law will vacillate into a thing of circum-
stances and not of facts, whilst the functions of the
Legislature would merge in those who are appealed
to for a right interpretation of the various Arts of
Parliament. Tce monopolists feel Lord Campbell's
decision to be " a heavy blow and great disconnv,
ment " to their cause, for altEough it appears on the
surface to go along with their interests, it iti
reality gives them mare than they anticipated,
and thus verifies the old adage that " too znuob of
a good thing is good for noth " Their
favourite doctrine (the monopolists) has been, " Oh,
we have paid money, and therefore nought the article
and the right which attaches to forgel`ting that
" copy-right," or the right to multiply copies,- is one
given by the British Legislature to Briti,h at: hors
alone, and therefore, whilst an English publisher can
buy and retain a foreign manuscript as a chattel, .4se
cannot claim the English author's right for a thing
which is " foreign " to it, and use it for his own ad-
vantage. As easy would it be for a foreigner to say,
I have purchased an English freehold, which gave the
former possessor the elective franchise, and that
course I have bought with it. The law requires
something to precede the latter, if not the right to
hold the former. Were every man able to buy any
privilege or exemption with money alone, that which
law is intended to regulate by giving rich and poor
equal rights, would be clone away with, and corrup-
tion and monopoly thereby allowed to sap the very
foundation of legislative equality. If the law which
regulates copyright in this country is to extend to all
the world, it follows as a necessary consequence that
a foreigner cannot be allowed to do what would be an
infraction of the principle as applied to a native
writer. The former must therefore abide the liabili-
ties consequent upon claiming a British author's
rights, and the English assignee standing in the place
of either must establish the right or pay the penalty
of his assumption. Suppose that a foreigner residing
abroad was to send a manuscript here and dispose of
it, which afterwards had been found to have been dis-
posed of fraudulently, the publisher in en-
deavouring to maintain his supposed right against an
alleged piracy, would involve both himself and
the defendant in a litigation which the
party who was the occasion of it would wholly es-
cape the consequences of. Literary publishers are
said to have given large sums of money for the works
of American authors, but what have they bought?
Not the copyright certainly, for the alien hail no
status by which he could assign, and the purchaser
has paid money in order to exercise illegally a right,
which belonged to a British subject. Of course he
could not maintain it, and must take the consequences
of his attempt to violate the law. Music publishers
have been " wiser in their generation" in regard to
outlay with foreign composers, for in all the cases
that have come before the courts it has been proved
that they have only given a nominal sum—not to the
author, but the foreign publisher—to effect priority,
or what has by a contrivance been called simulta-
neous publication. In by far the greater number of
cases they have paid nothing at all, but merely re-
printed the works of foreign authors, making fraudu-
lent entries at Stationers'-hall for their copyrights
and deceiving themselves into the belief that by en-
graving these assumptive words," This work is copy-
right," on their English editions, they could prevent
any competitor from meddling with, what they would
LAM persuade others, was their property.
No greater proof could be adduced that the Eng-
lish publisher had no faith in his own power to ac-
quire copyright in the works of foreign authors than
the miserable pittance given to obtain the proof sheets,
or first copies, from the foreign proprietor, or by the
latter, that the sums received bore no proportion to
the actual value of valid and positive copyright.
Any lawyer's clerk is competent to determine that
statutable property cannot be acquired by the same
process that governs the transfer of articles of mer-
chandise, and therefore injunctions, issues,
bills of exception, writs of error, and
appeals to the highest tribunal, are mere
efforts to substantiate by legal trickery that
which every one understands but those whose business
• it is to " make the worse appear the better reason."
It is a bad state of things that enables a wrong-doer
to pursue any one who will not succumb to those who
desire to be law makers or law breakers, as best suits
their own cupidity, and thereby call the powers of
litigation into exercise for the purpose of turning law
into an engine of oppression. It has been, however,
proved that injunctions may be filed and dissolved—
supplementary bills proceeded with—issues directed,
and all the continuous quips and quirks of legal
forms put in force by a litigious plaintiff without et
scintilla of right to drag the defendant through this
expensive process, or leaving him the means of ob-
taining redress—nay, more, that he may be ruined
by subornation of perjury.
What a state must British jurisprudence be in to
allow this to be said without any one daring to cone
tradict the fact. However, monopoly and perjury, if
they escape the consequences to outward appearances,
are made to pay the penalty in some way, sooner
or later. " Whatsoever a man sows that shall he also
reap." " The triumphing," therefore, " of the wicked
is short." "Chancery reform" is the first step to
put an end to filing of bills—directing issues—taking
out commissions—importing of foreign and irrespon-
sible witnesses, and a long train of evils connected
with " the law's delay" which have hitherto made it
worth the while of monopolists to spend a large sum
of money to bolster up a system which, after all, is but
" saving at the spigot and letting out at the bung-
hole," for the chicanery of " foreign copyrights"
it
exploded, unless effect be given to the "International
Copyright Act" by the reciprocity it requires.
I am, Sir, yours, Zee., P.

DIABOLICAL OUTRAGE ON A FEMALE;
GLOUCESTER, PRIDAY.--011e of the most horrid
atrocities, perhaps, ever committed in a civilised
country has just been perpetrated in the retired dis-
trict of her Majesty's Forest of Dean, in this county,
four of the perpetrators of which have been committed
to the Gloucester county gaol for trial. The outrage
is of such a nature as to render its details almost ins
credible, nine men being charged with having in suc-
cession violated the person of a poor, helpless, wander-
ing Irish widow, named Mary Macarthy, who noe,r
.
lies in one of the union workhouses on the borders of
the forest. The facts which came out before the
committing magistrates, Sir Martin Crawley Boevey,
Bart., and E. Jones, Esq., are as follow :—The
woman, who is 35 years of age, and has but recently
lost her husband, was journeying alone arid unpro-
tected through the Forest of Dean on her way to Blake;
ney, at a late hour of the night, when she observed a
light, and, being but half clad and wholly starved, she
sought its cheering influence. The light_ Ply
ceeded from the fire of some charcoal burners whorfa7
left their work for a short time, and the poor ivni ep:ixt
creature lay down before it until the
number, returned to resume their labolluirs,e,n;t°,:tmaenne
or two o'clock in the morning. At Jai I
treated her kindly, and at her desire
e risoners are
draught of water. The names of
rt e
g Charles, and
James James, Richard Bear, ured her a
Thomas Stephens, and they
arrisoner gear wished
o'clock in the morning. TheeaPCTrei°vea at about two
She
her to go into a small hutt
if did not they would
declined, but was told thsahe
n fibre and lie down.
was then taken into the
in with James and another
put her on the fire;_snio,led
James held her arms, violated
hut, where she was 102_
man not in custody The
The stranger immediately threw
her down,
and,
dtb7r prisoners, together with five other
°Join succession committed the same crime
her, on her crying
men, afterwar
tellingtongue, and this shall be the last.
her ; and the
out " murder,'
to bold her
thewoman's
According: to
oneto of thew
of the offence by all the nine men, a quarrel arose
en two of them as to whether she should remain
ihne tt
whehut, and one of them, taking up a shovel,
threatened to kill her if she did not leave at once. It
was then daybreak, and while the men were scuffling
together she went out and proceeded on her journey.
She met a woman on the road, and told her of the
treatment she had experienced, and afterwards, be-
coming exhausted, she lav down under a hayrack,
where she was found by a policeman some four-and•
twenty hours afterwards. She was conveyed to the
workhouse, when a surgeon examined her, and stated.
before the magistrates that he found such marks 01
violence upon her person as might have been oc_che•
Thy
sioned by the transactions sworn to by her..soners.
it
police succeeded in apprehending the i
fourn prisoner'.
whom the prosecutrix identified, and s hoped
tbar
the other ruffians will speedily be custody.

--- --
A KNOT DIFFICULT TO DE.—We observe, as a
mark of Puseyite progress, that last week the Rev
Dev...Eonport,
neas
Hutchinson married a couple of young people at
at which he was obliged to be assisted by two other clergy-
men.—Plymouth Journal.
BRITISHLADIES' FEMALE EMIGRATION SoCIETY.—
has been graciously pleased to express her
Her Majesty
approval of the objects of the society, and has subscribed
1001. to its funds.
GLOUCESTER, Aria. 7.—Arrd. Palestine, Jones,
lutt, Sid. Quebec Focht, and Ann liliastl/4TI quebg&