EDITOR'S TABLE. 



413 



if Ibiing out an edition often thousand, I, in 

 the first place, risk the whole prime cost of 

 that edition on the accuracy of my judgment 

 of the public taste. To those who have had 

 experience of the uncertainty of such judg- 

 ments this will probably seem enoucrh. But 

 tlje new scheme proposes that I shall add to 

 this risk the deposit, with the author or his 

 representatives, of a sum equal to a thousand 

 times the selling price of a single copy, with 

 the prospect of a possible lawsuit against a 

 man who is usually not rich, an indefinite 

 time afterward, to get back the value of 

 stamps for unsold copies in case I have made 

 a mistake. And, for all tliis additional trouble, 

 risk, and tying up of capital, I get absolutely 

 nothing. It is open to my rival in the next 

 street to write for the necessary stamps and 

 undersell me whenever he pleases. For the 

 publisher, therefore, the state of things would 

 remain exactly as it is now — a condition of in- 

 ternecine warfare, in which only those hoi^es 

 can afford to pay copyright who are wealthy 

 enough to break down any one who trenches 

 on their ground. The relation of authors to 

 publishers in America at present is exactly 

 that of the traveling merchants to the barons 

 of the middle ages. Put yourself in the hands 

 of any one of them who was strong enough, 

 and he protected you agamst all the rest; 

 otherwise, you were every man's prey. I do 

 not see how the projected scheme will alter 

 this state of things. It is further to be con- 

 sidered that the new proposal leaves the au- 

 thor absolutely at the mercy of anybody who 

 applies for stamps. The publisher may turn 

 out an ill-printed, Ul-con-ected version (per- 

 haps improved and amended to suit the taste 

 of the transatlantic people), and the author 

 has no remedy. 



In the case of illustrated works the wrong 

 may be still more gross. I speak with some 

 knowledge of the cost and trouble of prepar- 

 ing illustrated scientific books. The author 

 may spend months or years in dissecting and 

 preparing the requisite objects and in making 

 or superintending the execution, in the first 

 place, of drawings from them, and, in the 

 second place, of the engravings made from 

 these drawings. It rarely happens that he 

 obtains more than the most bare and scanty 

 remuneration for the labor thus spent, which 

 often is as great as that of writing his book. 

 The work being published in England, an 

 American publisher WTites for stamps for an 

 edition, say a third or a fourth of the price 

 per copy of the English one. It is perfectly 

 easy for him to do so ; the paper and the mere 

 type-setting aft;era printed book do not come 

 to much, and the illustrations, which have 



cost the producer so much trouble, can be re- 

 produced at a fraction of the cost of the origi- 

 nals. If they are course and clumsy, with 

 references half wrong, what matter 2 The 

 discredit is put down to the author's account. 



In conclusion, I am of opinion that this 

 proposal for " protected copyright with free- 

 trade competition " is false in principle, and, 

 so far as English authors and transatlantic 

 publishers are concerned, would be futUe in 

 practice. If adopted, it will merely come to 

 the issue of letters of marque to people who 

 are now frankly pirates. The French valet 

 said to the master who ofi"cred him so much a 

 year if he would leave off the pickings and 

 stealings, " Monsieur,' je prefere de vous 

 voler." I may paraphrase the candid valet's 

 confession, and declare that if I am to be 

 robbed I prefer to be robbed openly. 



If the transatlantic reader admits, as he 

 professes to do, that an English author has 

 rights of property in the book which he has 

 written, he seems to me bound further to ad- 

 mit that the author may at least appoint an 

 agent in the reader's own country with the 

 exclusive right to make and sell the book un- 

 der such conditions as that agent, knowing 

 the wants and condition of the community, 

 may think prudent and reasonable. K my 

 transatlantic friend calls that proposal " un- 

 disguised raonoply," I call any which offers 

 less to the author more or less disguised 

 piracy. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



OcR Ueredity from God: Con'sisting op 

 Lectures ox Evolutios. By E. P. Pow- 

 ell. New York : D. Appleton & Co. 

 Pp. 416. Price, $1.75. 



The author of this book is pastor, we 

 presume, of a society in Utica, who, having 

 been born and bred in Calvinism, expe- 

 rienced a shock, as he phrases it, " in the 

 face of its dire failure to explain the uni- 

 verse, to apologize for God, or to save man- 

 kind." Having lost faith in authoritative 

 revelation, he sought in the study of evolu- 

 tion deliverance from the chaotic condition 

 in which his mind was left. The outcome 

 of his struggles and the purpose of his book 

 are expressed in his declarations that "ear- 

 nest and honest men can not too soon com- 

 prehend that our only salvation is in that evo- 

 lution which has led from the primordial 

 cell to Jesus and Plato, and has lifted life 

 from the hunger for protoplasm to the hun- 

 ger for righteousness. No religion but that 



