i8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A. Yes. 



Q. And consequently that if the term of copyright was materially 

 abridged, or if another publisher was allowed to reprint them by pay- 

 ing ten per cent, royalty, he could reprint those works at such a very 

 much cheaper price than that of the original edition as to render it 

 almost impossible for a person to obtain any profit from the original 

 edition ? 



A. Not only by the mere process of copying, but it stands to reason 

 that if anybody has provided woodcuts in an extensively illustrated 

 work, even if those woodcuts are reexecuted in wood by the best 

 artists, it can be done at a far less cost for a copyist than for the origi- 

 nal publisher, because the woodcut in the original book represents not 

 merely the labor of the wood-cutter, but the labor of an artist who has 

 been employed before the wood-cutter to make the drawing from which 

 the wood-cutter makes his woodcut, and in all probability many hours' 

 labor of the person who made the dissection, or whatever it was, which 

 is there depicted. 



Chairman. Some questions, I believe, were asked you with respect 

 to copyright in lectures ? 



A. Yes. 



Q. Are you aware of what the practical protection afforded to lect- 

 ures by the jDresent law is ? 



A. I have understood that it is a very curious protection, and that 

 you have, I think, to give notice to a justice of the peace. 



Q. To two justices of the peace? 



A. I should like to speak very strongly upon that point, because I 

 myself have had occasion to feel the ill effects of the present practice. 

 I think that it is a most iniquitous thing that a man who is admitted to 

 a lecture should be able to print it with your name to it, and circulate 

 it through the country with all the faults and imperfections arising out 

 of the mode of reporting, without asking your leave or without your 

 being able to restrain him. 



Q. Having expressed the grievance which you feel, are you prepared 

 to give the commission any suggestion as to the mode of removing that 

 grievance ? 



A. I think that the simple and obvious course is to give a man ab- 

 solute property in his lecture. 



Q. But unless the public were informed in some way that that abso- 

 lute property was given, might there not be injustice on the other side ? 



A. I do not think so ; I think that the light of Nature ought to tell 

 a man that he has no business to report a lecture and sell it without the 

 permission of the person who gave the lecture. It does not require a 

 very keen moral sense to see that that cannot be considered quite a 

 right proceeding. 



Q. But there are reporters and reporters. If a public lecture were 

 given on a very interesting subject, I presume that the reporters of the 



