New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1854-01-20
LITERARY LABOR.

Inc hdTJOTd iiHtS AusAS' " VIZ
tonsl seoundrelsm with instructive aacrity The argu'
mept relied on by Texas to Justify the systemahc
swindpg of her public creditors Is very ia'r! Parai
Iled in The Tfmess decral of international Copyright
The Editor cites and cOumends Carey as authority on
his side of the question: vet Carey argues that British
authors generally are badly paid, compelled to solicit
nensions &c to exc out a subsistence, while Inc
Times roundly asserts that,
There is no class Of labo- which as general tnng
eorss money half as easily or with so little expenditure
~ .ol a. the skilled labor of the tongue ana the pen
There is no British author capable OF writing any thng
worth buying who is not perfectly aoe, uhueI tnS
eouators OF his own country 10 earn ayears suDssehce
for himself and his family with one or two months aoor
of the rem and many of them can do TINS WIN tne aoor
of single week What other working profession Is mere,
with the single exception perhaps OF the par Oh when any
thing like this can be said Many OF these autnOr' 90
tain $500 for review article which they dash of in sin
ole dey their editors OF them get seOOO year or
uree articles week in the daily papers their novess,
s. Geo or $4,000 for work which may occupy two or
three months Of their time their scientific men, from so
10 500 page for their far from difficult labors upon lex
icons encyclopedias, and ponderous treases ther poets
from up to 500 for every hundred lines OF doggerel
good bad and Indifferent. Yet with all this enormous
scale of reward these have the meanness AMI the m
nndence 70 come before the Senate of this country for the
purpose of demanding that the American people SHAH DO
subjected to perpetual and oppressive tax Tor their ex
elusive benef-a tax which being imposed by treaty
oud be irepe aabe and which would have the effect of
cutting of the of our population from their best
means Of slfeducaOn by deprving them OF access to
their customary and most valuable sources OF knowledge
except prices which the majority of the people could not
oford to pay
Here. YOU see, British authors don't half work, can
make $500 day if they choose and get ten cents to
dollar line for all the doggerel they choose to write.
ard seem to be poor set every way; and yet unless
We continue to steal the works that they may hereafter
write we shall sink into state of general ignorance
and mental darkness Let us do it, them by all means
knowledge is precious but if we can't obtain it hon
esty-that is by fairly paying those who devote their
lives to educing tit better TO do without it.
But can We be 80 provincial dependent and miserable
as this assumption would make us
Within our personal recollection the poets Camp
bell Moore and Mrs Hemans have lived and died in
strateped circumstances when six cents per copy on
their works bought and read in this country would
have made each of them independent HOod-One of
the rues poets of our age and the greatest humorst
of any age-ved poor and left his family to be sup
ported by charity, when bis works we're exceedingly
popular in this country and must have sold by this
time to the extent of 100000 volumes. Henry Neele
and Thomas Haynes Bayly committed suicide-the
latter in a state of extreme destitution-when their
writings very popular among u.s. Several British
authors whose writings have been reprinted and widely
read here are now living on Royal pension of $500 to
$1,000 year. Really, if these people might
$1,000 to $4,000 year, and choose to be supported
by charity we think them very bad teachers for
youth and regret that their writings should be cheap
ened here by stealing confscatng the copyright.
The Rob Roy treatment of Foreign Authors seems to
us mistaken in policy shameless in its lack of
honesty.
Bear in mind that we don't enter at all into the
dispute between the two sorts of bOok-stealers-or
rather the bookstealers under the pressure of
two different necessities-as to whether Foreign An
thors paid too much too little by their country
men respectively That is none of our business Our
ground is that i AmereGns choose to read these AH
h0rs rorks, morally bound to buy the prirsge Of
their Serrat uriters Whether they are paid $500 per
day each, only sxpence by the sale of their works
to other people, makes not the least odds as to our
moral duty. We are under no sort of obligation to
read those works at all but if we do choose to read
them, we ought to pay the writer's He whose con.
science don't affirm this proposition will please keep
bis fingers from sny close proximity to our pocket