New-York tribune., 1884-03-07
NEW PUBLICATIONS.


American Reprint. Vol. Nv. mp o'' ff'
Philadelphia ]. Nj. Stoddart Co. -
The appearance of the sixteenth volume Me"%
60 Mosul'0 of this reprint, about loVi nio,'a , 80
after the copies Of the original WeIe uoiN
American subscribers, suggests some in'0i -. -,
fectons upon the defects OF the copy TLo
which Congress is now trying to mehd' i"e
1,.or,,ioo hos LONG been celebrated as ono OF the
most elaborate and in certain departments one VI
,bo most thorough of all the encyclopedias. Nhen
,ho ninth edition was undertaken by the EdhouRn
.h,shors an ATTEMPT was made TO prevent plIa'lcdi
,.nr;nt,n0 by incorporating with the new teAv
number of articles by American contributors 'no
scheme failed. An unauthorized repIinV ""'
immediately begun in Philadelphia ana mas oe'"
continued in spite of all measures 10 put sup I"
-. and NOW 10 crown all, We have the eXtraor-
d;Dorv snectacle of tho Philadelphia firm actually
convriehting according to act OF Congress- tne
work which they have appropriated agaihs' 'ie
strenuous resistance of the legitimate o"hels'
Whether this stupendous operation mas oeen ln'u,
nossib,e bv the addition of sundry footnotes and
n,ber alterations in the text OF by other de-
vice. we do not know 1t is at any rate starting
commentary upon the absurd and chaotic coho''ion
of the laws respecting literary property
The publishers excuse the long delay III ISSUING
the present volume by the plea of needing time u
correct and improve the original. When ,hct De
pan their enterprise they promised rePi -
in every particular, of the English euiI,on' A..
chasers of the reprint" they said VIII
work as il comes from the hanus ol .h0 ~ ~
edition without alteration; ana auul'ion' -
;allv interesting 10 Americans VIII DE reserves Io
complementary volume 10 TINS pau 'hoS p,'Uo
,bams.lves with much emphasis in the frelace 10
az Ct yo,nme and indeed the public woud
hardly have been satisfied with anything less thn
q faithful reprint of a work which has enjoyed 1or
over a hundred wears an exceptional and splendlo
,enntation. But the promise of an exact repro
duction- of the original never was observed Inc
very earliest volumes were dishgured by oad
mans by gross errors of printing, ana even ny a."
terations We have marked number OF very
curious mistakes in the first instslments OIL INC re
nr;nt and they are serious enough to throw DOUBT
over the whole enterprise. For example, IN descrio
ing Oriental monasteres in the article Aooey'
the original saws that the usual Eastern arrange
ment is exemplifed in the plan OF the convent oI
Santa Laura, Mount Athos'; and the American re-
nrint transforms the words Mount Athos" INTO
not Athens - q s1rprising change which can hardly
mas, as an ordinary typographical blunder. Inc
article "Aeronautics" includes ar elaborate nathe-
matical discussion of the motion OF balloons, III
winch th, Itac a and the Greek alpha are both en-
ployed. In algebraic problems standing OF course
for different quantities. In the original TINS is clear
enough but the reprint uses font OF creek type IN
which the character for alpha is ldentlcai Win
The Itaic a. and some of the equations are tnus
made unintelligible because there is no way OF ue
termining which letter is meant Incomplete equip
ment of the printing Office is probably also the
cause Of a drol bunder in the article Aeslr'" Inc
original gives the Anglo Saxon form of the name Of
Odin "au-fotber.D the character which stands for
the hard N in Anglo Saxon beng something like a
n with the limb inclined to the left and mark
across it. The American reprinter, not having this
letter in his case seems to have picked out the
Roman letter which he thought looked most like 1t,
and his choice fell upon o. The omission OF accents
is frequent fault oddly enough, 1t is noticeable
in the article Accent; and the misprinting OF
proper names, especially in geography is annoying
and misleading
Wemust reserve, however, for another occasion
more particular examination of the earlier volumes
of the reprint which. so far as We have looked,
seem TO swarm with erTors-many worse than
these If the American publishers have at last
realized the need of improvement, and have de-
voted the long delay in the Issue OF the new vol
umes TO a careful reading of tho proofs, their sub
scribers will be well paid for waiting, But the
nromise of an exact reproduction of the original,
"without alteration,~ has been formally with
drawn The anonymous Philadelphia editor mas
now adopted the policy of Improving" the text
according 10 such light az Providence has given
him. This announcement will naturally cause the
subscribers some uneasness since they cannot
know whether the articles which appear IN this re-
print under the names of distinguished authorities
have been tampered with or not. The American
footnotes sometimes indicate useful corrections and
additions but are often trivial and uncritical. A
supplementary article on Mexico" contains great
deal of statistical and other information,
but is also an illustration of editorial inca
pacity, since it fails TO supply the most glaring
deficiencies of the original for example, neither
article contains history Of Mexico and even now
after three hands have tried at It, the article re-
mains one of those failures which even the best
cyclOpadias seem fated 10 perpetrate. The Ameri-
canreprinters promise to try again in an appendix
TO the whole work. Perhaps if they would add
fresh article on Mexico to each OF the forthcoming
volumes they might finally cover the subject, be-
sides dispelling the mOnOtony of an unvarying
alphabetic arrangement.
There is one thing more of which the subscribers
have good reason to complain. The type of the re-
print has been entirely altered since the work was
begun. and the volumes consequently do not match
"a defect which TO any collector of taste must be
almost intoleTabe.