The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-10-19

-ADDafenLlY QV'~IstI
literary detective whose knowledge of worth
less novels is most extensive. Within little
while he has run down four or five literary
thieves and venders Of stolen goods, but never
apv one of them with more skill or with
greater zest than he has shown in his recent
capture and conviction of Miss M. L. Braddon.
He seems to have worked up the case with
enthusiasm, and taken a real delight in his
success. First he showed very conclusively
that novel lately published in Beigravia,
under the title of "Circe," was stolen bodily
from Octave Feuillet, whose drama of Dalila
had been almost literally translated by the
"Mr. Darlington White" who, Belgrayia
said, wrote "Circe." This exposure was made
on the 10th of September. He pursues the
subject on the 18th, setting a trap into which,
on the Goth, Miss Braddon unsuspectingly
falls-that is to say, after the theft is exposed
on the l6th the detective writes letter pur-
porting to come from Miss Braddon in which
that lady is made to offer to return to her
subscribers the money paid for those numbers
of Beigravia in which "Circe' had appeared.
The letter is amusingly like what a person of
Miss Braddon's sort might write when re-
solved on doing magnanimous thing regard
less of attendant expenses. 1t called out
note really written by her, and which reads as
follows:-
'NIiss Braddon presents her compliments to
inform him that the letter purporting to be
the 18th instant, Is a forgery"
Which was all the forger wanted for in an
o1i o1 To-
a stroke from rod which evidently had been
two or three days in pickle for her.
"The forged letter was one in which Miss
regret that the readers OF BeigraUid should
have been imposed upon by novel stolen from
the French"
Miss Braddon, it is to be observed, says no
thing in this note of Mr.. Darlington White"
whom Mr.. "Chesterton Smith" (our detective
again) guesses in another letter to the editor
to be mythical character-non-e existent, like
Mrs Camps Mrs. Harris. 1t is to be COM
cluded, as is said by the Gagette correspon-
dent, ''T. IT," whom we suppose to be our
detective in still another disguise, that Mr..
Babington White is no other than Miss NJ. E.
Braddon, who, as "T. T." points out, has
already stolen M, Feydeau's "Madame Bovary'
anu pdSSeu IL Oh dS nef own unu6r Jle name
of "The Doctors Wife" Unfortunately,
Miss Braddon's audience is such that she is
hardly injured by a conviction for larceny.
But her fate may warn others. If it does not
our novelists will get to be as bad as our dra-
matists have long been, who no longer think
it in the least disgraceful to steal French plays
And we hope, doubtingly, that this exposure
may possibly damage the fortunes of Miss Brad
don's Belgravia. It. as much the fashion now
adays for a celebrated or notorious novelist to
set up magazine as for successful pugilist
to set up sporting house, where he gathers
around him profitable circle of the friends
whom his arduous professional labors have
pleased. So we have magazines which are
mainly filed with trash from unknown
writers, because they contain as the taking
part of their contents some chapters of a novel
by some favorite story-teller, or, as we feel in
clined to say because they contain some trash
by too we'll l-known authors. 1t is comfort
to think that against this rage for magazine
reading there must soon be reaction. We
have really almost plague of magazines. But
there are people who will not read books
". Y. Nation.