The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1882-12-23
BRAIN BURGLARS.
Stealing, of Thoughts in the
Literary World.
Rev. TaImage Goes for Writers and Minis
ters Who Commit Petty Larceny in
Stealing Other Peoples Ideas.
SUBJECT: LITERARY THEFT"

SUbJECIs LITERARY IhEf L.
TExT-ExOdus Xxx, 10: "Thou shalt
not steal"
Steal whatP Overcoats, furniture,
horses, United States bonds, dry goods,
hardware, merchaL d Sc, gold and silver
Do not so limit the command. The
primatic thunder no more rolls out
against the appropriation of the goods
of others than it denOunces the theft of
intellectual possessions. 1t is high
time that some pulpit somewhere spoke
out in unmistakable terms against what
is called plagiarism-a sin that comes
down through the centuries, and is still
abroad among the people.
The subject is intensely practical, for
there are in this house many who earn
their livelihood by the pen, and there
are here young men who, as lawyers and
as editors and as clergymen, are form
ing their intellectual habits, and many
whose lifetime work is that of giving
instructions; and, above all, there are
hundreds of parents who need to give
right bias on this subject to their chill
dren, living in a time when all our
boys and girls come to the art of liter
ary composition. 1t is not a subject to
be adjourned to the realm of taste and
Whimsicality; but it is a question of
ethics, Ofright and wrong, of practical
morals, and charged with tremendous
issues. Much of the worlds knowledge
is a common possession, and no more to
be fenced in or kept under lock and key,
or chained fast to an authors desk,
than is the atmosphere to be bought or
sold. Such are all the facts Of history;
such are the statistics OfIthe world; such
is the realm of anecdOte, such is logic,
such are all the theories of science and
religion. Every age bOrrows and ap-
prOpriates all the accumulation of past
ages. Every year is the lawful heir of
the preceding year, and every century
the legatee of the former century. But
the arrangement of facts, the peculiar
presentation of knowledge, may be
private property. Plagiarism begins
when you take without recognition or
compensation a mans way of putting
things. Historical facts are the COM
mon property of all the people, but no
one would dispute BancrOft's copyright
to the History of the United States" or
MOtley's copyright to the Dutch Re-
public" or PrescOtt's copyright to the
conquest of Mexico" All the world
has the privilege of telegraphy, but it is
only fair that Professor Morse should
have q patent to his invention. The
English language is in Legitimate use
by all the people, Noah Webster was
right in keeping royalty on his Una
bTfdged Dictionary. All the world has
Is
no one sympathizes with the attempt to
swindle Eli Whitney out of his patent
There are hundreds of the best men and
women of England and America kept in
semi-pauperiSm, coughing their life
away at WI t NJ desks, from which they
would long ago have been emancipated
if they had been able to have adequate
financial interest in their literary chill
dren, The lack of sufficient interna-
hntWnnn
Britain and the United States has caused
an amount of depreciation that is equiva
lent to wholesale and Infamous brig
andage, The punishment on both sides
the sea for stealing bale of cotton, or
cask of rice, or shoulder of beef, or
barrel of apples, or can of oil, or a
load of wood, is imprisonment, TOmbs'
Court, disgrace and ejectment from re-
spectacle society; but for the larceny of
literary productions, which may have
cost man many days and nights of an
xiOus toll on hard fare and with aching
brain and wOrn-Out nerves and declin-
ing health, there is only the punishment
of deTisiYe smile.
When great book appears in Eng
land or the United States the only ones
ton is which publishing house shall,
on the opposite side of the water. steal
it first. The time must come and will
come when dividing line between
meum and tuum in literary matters will
be distinctly marked and recognized as
the boundary line between two home
Steads. The eOuntenancing of .interna-
tiOnal larceny has had its baleful effect
on individuals, and editors have to be
on their guard lest the poem OF the
essay sent them belonged to some one
else than the pretended originator. Yea,
the vice has cTept on lecturing platform
and into pulpits. 1t is bedwarfing to
the mind, and damaging to the soul that
practices it. No man can keep this sin
and keep his religion. 1t is dishonesty
OF the most damaging type. 1t is men
tai suicide The habit grows like all
other iniquities. The man first puTlOins
a sentence, then takes a paragraph,
after awhile chapter, and finally goes
into the utter recklessness of the liter
ary piekpOeket. His own powers of
originatiOn shTiYel up. His influence
for good in community comes to an end. |
There never was aIplaglarist but was
found out. The printing press is now
mighty detective on the track of all
such intellectual desperadOes. The
time was when man might carry on
such base practices and for years keep
around him the cloak of deceit, and the
old Church Courts were ever anon busy
trying men for misapprOpTiating Sau-
rims sermons, and Wesley's sermons,
and Jeremy TaylOr's sermons, the per-
petratOrs found out by merest accident.
But now the whole worlds literary,
scientific, religious knowledge turns
over at least once week, and the most
of it turns over every day. Our large
daily newspapers are volume at each
issue. They go out through the mails
by the ton. You might as well hoist a
ladder at MONDAY against the church
and try to steal the town clock as to
carry off the thought at all conspicuous.
The news editor, scissors in hand and
muscilage on the table, sits up to his
chin amid the exchanges that have
come from the four winds of heaven.
Besides that, all the world is travelling
nowadays. Fares are so cheap and
transit is so rapid that before every
evangelist, lecturer, preacher and Bible
class teacher and and prayer-meeting
exhorter and public speaker, there may
be persons from the most unexpected
quarter, and if they heard some one de-
liver in New Orleans three years ago
what you delivered in Brooklyn they
will be sure to proclaim the discovery.
Make all the quotations from all the
Low uOnF handa nn hn