4 Thomas Thomsen : Appendix to the Angmagsalik Eskimo. 



to check the consequences ot an error once committed, which may be 

 passed on from one writer to another. The example was drawn from 

 an illustration which Hr. Thalbitzer, according to his note thereto 

 appended, had taken from E. W. Nelson. It now appears (p. 450) that 

 he has not had recourse to Nelson's own work, which is to be found 

 in all our public libraries ; the picture "is reproduced after a some- 

 what indistinct copy in another". — The example thus serves even 

 better to illustrate, my point than I had at first supposed. 



I see no need to waste further time upon Hr. Thalbitzer's latest 

 paper. I may, however, just draw attention to one more feature in 

 the author's polemical methods. On p. 455 note 1, he writes, "In the 

 footnotes to these pages Hr. Thomsen exhibits a dainty specimen of 

 his erudition. He appears, by the way, to have overlooked the Danish 

 historian L. Bobe" etc. And on p. 481 we read : "I imagine that Hr. 

 Thomsen has found the material for some of his more fortunate com- 

 ments in Hr. Porsild's valuable work". The accusation of plagiarism 

 is in my view a charge of a very serious nature, the more so since it 

 will as a rule be very difficult for the person accused to defend him- 

 self. And where such accusation is launched, as here, without even 

 the slightest attempt at proof, I am confident that others beside 

 myself will denounce it as a weapon which decent people do not 

 usually condescend to employ. As regards the facts of the case, I am 

 fortunately able to -add that my work has been under control since the 

 autumn of 1914, and that alterations made since then are still to be 

 seen in the manuscript preserved. The two mentioned papers were 

 both issued in 1915. 



Hr. Thalbitzer has illumined his defence with a neat selection of 

 quotations from the Latin. If I desired to intimate that I am myself 

 not unacquainted with that language, I could hardly find a better phrase 

 with which to conclude than the well-known maxim : 



"Audacter. calumniare, semper aliquid haeret". 



Translated by W. J. Alexander Worster. 



