The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-26 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 26, 1861.

The three vessels lately ordered are the large one
laid down at Chatham, and two more, which, though
inferior in dimensions to the Warrior, are somewhat
larger than the Defence and her consort. We have
already, therefore, three classes of Iron-sides, and
we have three specimens of the first class, two of
the second, and two of the third. This does not
look like a very liberal provision, but the prepara
tion is more considerable than it appears. Ships of
this kind are so large and so costly that they will
always be few in number compared with fleets of
former days. The old 100 gun ship was about 3,000
tons, and cost £lOO,OOO. The Duke of Wellington
is nearly 4,000 tons, and cost upwards of £170,000;
but an iron-cased vessel carrying 100 guns would,
even on the estimate of those who advocate iron,
be of 10,000 tons burden, and cost three quarters of
a million. It is obvious that fleets composed of
such vessels may be powerful, but cannot be nume-
rous. A popular historian has just given us.a cir-
cumstantial account of the great Spanish Armada.
It was the largest, the heaviest, and the most for-
midable fleet ever seen upon the ocean. It consisted
of 130 vessels of unprecedented size, and its entire
tonnage was 59,120. Three Great Easterns, or ten
Warriors, therefore, would outweigh all this
fabulous
is the smallest model likely to serve for our future
line of battle ships Judging by this standard,
we can hardly call the estimates for the ensuing
year insufficient. It used to be said that we could
generally expect to build and launch out of the
funds annually voted three line of battle ships,
three frigates, and three vessels of minor rates.
The aggregate cost of these vessels, even at the
highest estimate of wooden ships, weuld be but a
million, or thereabouts, whereas we are proposing
to spend fully that sum upon iron during the year
1861. If we find ourselves at the close of this year
with seven good and efficient iron-cased ships, we
shall not have done badly, and we doubt if any
other Power will be ahead of us. It is evident that
these vessels cost time as well as money, and may
not always succeed. The only point to be observed
is, that we shall certainly not want old ships and
new ships together. If we spend our million on
Warriors, we need not spend it on three-deckers
too. If one fashion actually comes in, the other
will go out, and something, at any rate, of what we
want for new iron-sides maybe saved out of the
28 line-of battle ships and frigates which we are
still constructing of wood.—Times.

to those who have once taken upon themselves
monastic vows. They cannot, for obvious reasons,
be permitted to remain in their present residences ;
but others are provided for them, and a pension
sufficient to meet the wants of the life to which
they have devoted themselves. The Church of
Rome ought to be infinitely indebted to the new
King of Napl, s for relieving her of one of her most
grievous and crying scandals ; and happy will be
the day when the same measure can be applied to
the swarms of ecclesiastical vermin—white, black,
and gray, with all their trumpery—which infest
the streets of Rome, and, indeed, of every town of
the Papal States.
The first lesson which Southern Italy needs is
to be set to work, and the best example she can
receive is the emphatic discouragement of idleness,
let it cloak itself under whatever pretext it will.
We hope that our own Ecclesiastical Commission
will carefully peruse and inwardly digest these
Neapolitan decrees. They will observe, no doubt,
with much surprise that the sums realised by the
suppression of monasteries are appropriated to
purposes very different from those which
they have been in the habit of regarding
as sound and canonical. We do not find
that a single ducat is devoted to raising the
salary of a bishop, nor even of a dean, nor that the
construction of new palaces absorbs any part of the
fund. These, which we all know well to be the
chief cares of our Ecclesiastical Commission, have
been unaccountably neglected in Italy, and, instead
of them, money is to be spent on improving the
incomes and relieving the wants of the poor clergy.
What a pity that M. Cavour during his many visits
to England did not place himself in communication
with some of our bishops, from whom perhaps he
might have learnt the true principles of ecclesiasti-
cal appropriation, and thus spared us the pain of
seeing the reputation of the first Liberal Govern-
ment in Italy tarnished by practices which must of
course be wrong, since they are in such marked and
total.contradiction to our own !—Times.

LAW INTELLIGENCE, Feb. 25.

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS.

:Sittings in Banco, before Mr. Justice Williams
and Mr. Justice Willes.)

BEADE V. CONQUEST-THE RIGHT TO DRAMATISE

NOVELS.

This case involved the question whether the
dramatising a novel without the consent of the
author is any breach of copyright.
Mr. Justice Williams, in delivering judgment,
said that the declaration alleged that the plaintiff
was the registered proprietor of the copyright in a
tale called " Never Too Late to Mend," and that
the defendant, without the consent of the plaintiff,
dramatised the said novel and caused the drama to
be publicly represented at the Grecian Theatre for
profit. To this count there was a demurrer, and it
was insisted by the defendant that what • he had
done was not an infringement of the plaintiff's
copyright therein. The Court was of opinion that
in this the defendant was right. The right claimed
by the plaintiff was two-fold ; and first he con-
tended that his statutable right had been in-
fringed by the defendant. It was laid down in
" Coleman v. Wathen" that the public repre-
sentation of a dramatic piece on the stage was
not a publication within the meaning of the
statute of Anne ; and the sth and 6th Victoria,
cap. 45, defined copyright to be " the sole and
exclusive liberty of printing, or otherwise mul-
tiplying copies.' This seemed to furnish a com-
plete answer to the plaintiff's claim under statute.
The plaintiff's main reliance, however, was placed
upon this, that even if his statutable right had not
been infringed, he had a common law right concur-
rent with but more extensive than that possessed
under the statute,' and that such common law right
had been invaded by the defendant. It was net
necessary to consider whether anterior to the statute
of Anne there existed a copyright at common law
in published books ; but there could be no doubt
that in Lord Mansfield's time the weight of autho-
rity was in favour of such a right, though the doe-
tiine had found less favour in more modern times.
But the continued existence of such a copyright
after the statute of Anne was distinctly denied, in
the celebrated case of Donaldson v. Buckett, by
the majority of the judges, and the case itself de-
cided that no such common law right existed after
the expiration of the period for which the statute
gave copyright. The question therefore was nar-
s owed to this—whether the statute of Anne, having
put an end to such right after the prescribed period,
it was yet preserved during that period. His
lordship having quoted some cases, expressed the
opinion of the Court that copyright in published
works existed only by statute.
Judgment for the defendant.