According to a letter in the Times, signed by Mr.
J. H. James, the Religious Tract Society needs the instruction to be gathered from some of its own tiresome publications. In 1852, Miss Anne Maury, an American lady, published a book called the "Memoirs of a Huguenot Family," which proved very successful. The Religious Tract Society thereupon, without communicating with the author, republished under the same name two-thirds of the book, unaltered, and sold it at half - price, so killing the demand for the original. Though aware that she had no legal redress, Miss Maury, thinking a religious Society would be honester than a secular one, asked for compensation, and received a refusal, the Secretary alleging, among other excuses, all unfounded, that the practice of American publishers in steal- ing English copyrights "did not suggest to the Society the duty of making terms" with the American author. In other words, the Society thinks that its breach of the Christian rule which forbids retaliation justifies or palliates a breach of the Eighth Command.. meat. The Secretary ought to have his own tracts read to him steadily for a month, keeping awake the while.
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