works of reputation; and in short, that there are indivi- 
duals who, under the name of publishing booksellers, open 
shops for no other purpose than that of becoming receivers 
of pirated goods of a particular description. If these persons 
committed such offences against what are termed the crimi- 
nal laws of England, they would be speedily transferred to 
our penal settlements as felons; but as they cunningly con- 
fine their practice to acts, which, whatever may be the moral 
delinquency of the perpetrator, the law refers to the class 
of civil offences, they cannot be brought to the bar of 
the Old Bailey, but are amenable to higher courts, and 
subject to pecuniary punishment only. By the opera- 
tions of depredators of this kind, we have long been 
seriously injured. The principal part, if not the whole of 
certain cheap periodicals, have been prepared by pirating 
the letter-press and plates of this work; that such pro- 
ceedings should take place without acknowledgment is only 
human nature, for when will the thief acknowledge from 
what purse he has purloined his gains ; that they should go 
unpunished would be to offer a premium to roguery at the 
expense of honesty. We have therefore at length deter- 
mined to put down, if we can, the practice of literary piracy, 
so far as we are interested, by an appeal, first to the laws of 
the country, and secondly to the good feeling of the public, 
who we are persuaded would be as much ashamed of encou- 
raging book-robbery by the purchase of publications supplied 
by it, as they would feel themselves disgraced by being seen 
to enter the shop of a notorious housebreaker, for the sake 
of the cheap bargains his plunder might enable him to offer. 
-To our appeal to the law, the Bench has promptly and 
efficiently responded by the above injunction. To our appeal 
to the publie we are confident that a similar answer will be 
made, and that the high moral feeling which is the peculiar 
boast of this country, will be quite sufficient to put down 
such practices. 
We therefore warn all those whom it may concern, 
that we shall immediately proceed in the courts of justice 
against all future piratical offenders, until the nuisance 18 
abated ; and that we shall take efficient means of another 
kind, to expose the parties to whom these observations more 
particularly apply, if we shall see occasion to do so. 
