Daily Yellowstone journal., 1889-11-01
cuRIoslTles OF PLAGIARISM.
The Habit Of Claiming other Peoples
Literary Work.

The Habit OF Claiming Other Peoples
Literary Work.
The setting up of a claim 10 the au.
thorship of Little Lord Fauntleroy'
by a lady whose literary work has
never attracted public attention TO her.
self must awaken interest in the phe-
nomenon If a malady not yet classi.
fed by the doctors, but familiar TO all
editors, critics and publishers.
The disease is akin to the opium
habit in its persistency, in the ease
with which il is acquired, in the obsti-
macy with which il resists treatment
and in its effects upon the moral char
acter Of its victims. The characteristic
symptom of the ailment is an irresisti-
BILE disposition TO claim 10 have written
other peoples literary works.
II has never been definitely deter
mined whether the disease is infectious
or not, but there is strong suggestion
that it is so in the fact that even the
most robust moral health seems TO
afford no secure immunity from its
attacks.
Let us consider a few typical cases.
The late DR.. Holland was the i~nstigator
Of the Sake Holm" stories. They
were written by a person or persons
perfectly well known to him. lie was
consulted from time 10 time concern.
ing them. He received them in man
uscript, suggested occasional changes,
many of which were made, and, as the
editor Of the magazine in which they
were published. he drew checks in
payment for them. He confidently
believed. therefore, that he knew who
wrote the stories as certainly as he
knew who wrote his own poems. And
yet there were three entirely reputable
persons, all accounted truthful, each
of whom solemnly assured DR.. Holland
that he or she. in fact. wrote the stories,
each having a different tale to tell of
the way in which the manuscripts
were stolen.
Mr.. William Cullen Bryant once
told the present writer that a person
who was moi born until years after the
first publication of ''Thanatopsisn We
hemently claimed the authorship Of
that poem, and went away indignant
when Mr. Bryant declined to surren-
der his own pretensions in that par
ticular.
The number Of persons Hho wrote
Beautiful Snow" was estimated by
the late Richard Grant White at TWEEN.
ty-four, and everybody remembers
how many different persons produced
"All Quiet Along the Potomac and
"Rock Me 10 Sleep"
The curiosities Of plagiarism are
endless. and sometimes startling coin
cidences arise in connection with them.
The present writer, when editing a
weekly periodical many years ago,
had offered 10 him an article which he
had himself written and published
anonymously in a daily newspaper
two years earlier. The article was
written for a temporary use, and there
was nothing in it TO cause any reader
10 remember ii after the immediate oc-
casion had passed away. If the pla-
giarist had offered his literary swag to
any other editor his theft would not
have been suspected. His i'll luck led
him 10 submit his manuscript 10 the
only person in the country who could
have known its origin and real author.
ship.
A rural clergyman in New York
had the courage upon one occasion 10
offer a literal transcript Of Dickens
'Christmas Carol" TO a New York ed
itor for sale, and when the editor
objected that the work was already
widely known as Dickens, the clergy
mar solemnly protested that he could
not imagine how the author Of Pick
wick" could have got at his manu-.
script, which had been locked up for
years in his parsonage desk. The
editor was unable TO aid him with any
plausible conjecture.
Some years agoa student in the Uni
versity of California made a collec-
ton Of the best college magazine
poems he could find, and among the
pieces was one Of unusual quality,
whose author had been much admired
throughout the college world for his
remarkable production. A newspaper
critic presently discovered that Alfred
Tennyson had shamelessly stolen the
poem and published it as his own
many years before its actual author
had ceased 10 wear bibs at dinner.
In the year 1873 or 1874 a woman
committed suicide in Milwaukee who
had attracted a good deal Of attention
there as George Eliot. She had ex-
planned 10 those who interested them
selves in her literary career that her
latest story, "John Andross," then
running as a serial, was written under
the pseudonym Of Rebecca Harding
Davis. Yet the editor Of the periodical