New Britain herald., 1916-09-07
WHAT OTHERS SAY
Views on all sides of timely questions as discussed in ex- changes that come to tho Herald Office
COntraband Ether Waves,
(New York Evening Sun. }


 l Lawyers who try to keep up with the times have a nice task set for them by the decision of Judge Hand of the United States District Court in the matter of the rephotographing l across the Canadian border of the film of the fight at Havana between Willard and Johnson. The ingenuity of that attempt to avoid the law agalnst the importation of the film ap- peared to- be considerable until Judge Hands opinion was given, the con- tentlon of the defence being, it seems that nothing crossed the border and that there could therefore be no inn portation and no violation of the law.
 Now we see that under the law matter is not the only importable 1 thing. The ether, which scientists are careful to distinguish from matter until they know more about it, evil dently is held to be importable, for Judge Hand writes:
 Now, it is clear that the negative New York film could not be taken except by the agency of forces set in motion in Canada. These forces were rays of light moving into the United
 
 definite and vast numbers from each point of the object in Canada in divergent directions and were mere 'confusions of light so called, until certain of them came into the lens on the New York side. The argument that this process did not amount to bringing a pictorial representation from Canada to the United States while difficult to answer, is I think, met by the unquestionable fact that a pictorial image, though not phy- sical object. which was in Canada is now in New York"
 If Newton's corpuscular theory of light had not been discarded the judge might have held that a physical ob- ject had passed from Canada to the United States, for the old gravity man believed that light was due to the emission of streams of fine particles from the source of light. But that theory is no longer welcome and light is accepted as the passage of certain waves of the ether from the object seen or photographed to the eye or the lens. Passage indeed, for the speed is 1S6,0OO miles a second. Rays of light Judge Hand calls the waves, and that is the popular name for them.
 The ether having been passed upon an importable, what may be some fu- ture declaration of the law concern ing other things which lie outside the realm of matter? What of the inn portation of thought, of love, of at mosphere? Suppose that congress, for the protection of American play wrights Ca Brotherhood of Melodram- atists could force 1t through,) for bade the importation of ideas; how would the Hon. Dudley Field Malone, stopping Charles Dillingham; or Au- gustus Thomas at the pier, search their minds for contraband climaxes? Suppose that the Little Group of Au- thors gOt as a reward for their Ten Questions to Hughes. law prevent ing the entrance to America of any idea conceived except with mold Bennett be convicted of snug gling except on his general reputa- ton? Yet surely science will some day invent a way to discover these things, just as 1t will know how to detect an American who has fallen in love abroad. For a thought, even a love thought, is slow as compared with the flight of the waves that car ried across the border the picture of Jess soaking Jack on the beezer.
 Lawyers, particularly customs law yers, should study up physics and things. Not every judge will write an opinion as lucid as Judge Hands.