Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-06-05

ownership one may make for the articles of
adornment or use that he wears about his
person.
HaA" produces watch, all laws recog-
nize his right to possess it. If he wears it
to England the law still protects his own
ership. But if he writes book and car
ries it to England, another can reprint it
and sell it without his consent, and with
out paying him farthing for his property.
That is what authors call "literary piracy"
and it is rightly named. The demand for
international copyright has been temper
arily defeated in Congress, but its friends
are not disheartened, and are hopeful that
the bill may be revived before the session
closes. To that end they are making great
efforts, and in their struggles they ought to
have the sympathy and assistance of all
good men.
In 1876 Longfellow wrote to a friend:
1t may comfort you to know that 1 have had
twenty-five publishers in England and Scotland
and only four of them even took the slightest
notice of my existence, even SO far as to send
me copy of the books. Shall we call this
'chivalry"-or the other word?
Longfellow's question is susceptible of
but one answer honestly, and that involves
the use of "the other word" Hawthorne
told of visiting an English publisher, who
expressed great delight at seeing him.
"Well he might" said the author, "for he
had sold uncounted thousands of my books
without paying me penny" Lowell,
Mrs. Stowe, Clemens, E. P. Roe, Miss AL
colt, Mrs. Whitney, Beecher, Headley, Ban
croft, Mathews-indeed all American
writers of note have had the same expert
ence with foreign pirates, precisely as
European writer's have with American
pirates.
International copyright would put a
stop to this mutual stealing, and hence
conserve good on both sides of the water.
There is some measure of protection
granted by the laws of England now to
foreign author, but in nine cases out of ten
he cannot avail of it; but we grant the
foreign author no protection, nor does
France or Germany. There is one phase
of the question that should not be over
looked, and that is the absence of inter-
national copyright floods the country with
cheap foreign publications that are the
least desirable, while in England, France
and Germany TIE cheapest books to be
bought are the best. Brander Mathews
thus explains the fact as follows:
In Germany. in France and in England there
have been many efforts of late years to supply
very cheap editions of the best books at price
within the means of the poorest student. In the
United States no such effort has been made; nor
is ii likely to be made as long as the market for
cheap books is supplied by inferior foreign fic-
ton which not only usurps the place OF better
literature, but spoils the appetite for it. The
cheap books TO be bought in England in France
and in Germany are stimulant and invigorating
mentally and morally; man is better Tor reatl-
ing then; he is richer and stronger and more fit
for the struggle of life. The cheap books to be
bought in the United States are only too often
the trivial trash of the ladies who call them
selves "Ouida" and 1.-The Duchess" How
much these may nerve man or woman for the
realities of existence, how much the wisdom to
be got from them may arm us for the stern bat
tie OF life, cannot say.