We suppose there is some importance in the decision given
on Thursday in "Walter v. Steinkopf," but we hardly see where it is. The proprietor of the Times claimed damages from the proprietor of the St. James's Gazette for republishing Mr. Rudyard Kipling's remark- able letter, headed "In Sight of Monadnock ; " and Mr. Justice North laid it down that while public news could not be copyright, articles or paragraphs in a newspaper could be. We did not know that anybody doubted it, and condemn quotation without acknowledgment as morally a theft ; but in practice, we suspect the existence of exclusive right is of very little importance. Priority by a few hours is just as complete a protection to a newspaper as priority by weeks, and the public makes few mistakes as to the paper which has original information. It is very vexing to a news- paper owner to see his costly telegrams republished for nothing in the evening papers ; but the vexation is of the kind which a clubman feels when his best story is taken out of his month. The Spectator is robbed every week by country papers, and by at least one London journal, in the most unblushing style ; but we comfort ourselves with a reflection born of long experience. Piratical papers die insolvent.
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