THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1879. OUR LONDON LETTER.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1820, 20 December 1879, Page 2

THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1879. OUR LONDON LETTER.

[FEOM OT/B OWN COBBEBFONDENT.I LONDON, Septembers. The great social question of the day is " What is to be done with our photographers ? " and it is almost certain that in the next session of Parliament, whatever G-ovornment may be in power, will be called upon to support, if not to present, a Bill for the amendment of tho law in respect to the copyright of ono's own face. It ie an anomaly that could only happen in England that when you go to a photographer and order your dozen, or twenty, or fifty copies of the likeness which ho then takes, you pay him a lump sum which is supposed to, and practically does, remunerate him for all his work ; but by law the copies belong to you, and the original, that is to say the negative plate on which your features were first imprinted belongs to him, and he is free to make what use he pleases of it. That such is the law is plain from a statement made laßt Saturday in open Court by Mr Sergeant Parry, and assented to by Mr Justice Hawkins on the Bench. This law does not affect ordinary people, but once become famous or notorious, and there are in London plenty of people of both sexes who are either the one or the other, and then what happens ? Are you young, handsome, and just married to a Duke ? Are you the lady whose receptions are the latest feature of fashionable life ? or, to turn to the other sex, do you marry at eighty-two years of age, as a reverend Baronetjdid last week, or are ycu the newest notorious criminal, forthwith the photographer looks up your negative, and at once you appear in a thousand shop windows, and a variety of styles, and at almost any price. It is felt that this must be repressed, though probably many of those who are thus paraded at the present time would be sorry to have an alteration of the law.

The question has arisen thus. In one of the streots of Mayfair live Mr and Mrs Edward Langtry. He says he is a private gentleman, and has always lived on terms of the greatest affection with his young wife, who happened to be one of the most famous beauties of the Court drawing rooms for the last two sessions. This summer her full length portrait, painted by an eminent artist, adorned the walls of the Royal Academy Exhibition, but her cabinet size photograph was everywhere. She seemed to have but one rival, Mrs Oornwallis West, tho wife of a gentleman who is a large landowner in North Wales, and a man of old family. Mrs West is perhaps just one shade less handsome than Mrs Langtry, and accordingly they have been " taken" by quite a number of leading photographers. Indeed the rage for being shown to the public by means of large colored carte-do visiles became so notorious a little while ago that it was burlesqued upon the stage of a leading theatre. " I've been photographed like this," sung Miss Lydia Thompson, striking one attitude ; " I've been photographed like that," in another position, and though it was personally applicable to the pretty Lydia, yet every auditor saw it had a wider significance, for no one is surprised at an actress, who is a great favorite with the public, dcDlrlng lu liuve ner iikness shown in many attractive forms. Nor are we surprised when members of the Royal family permit photographers to multiply their " counterfeit presentiments" by the thousand and offer them to a publio which is supposed to be always bursting with loyalty and patriotism. But when we see young married ladies exhibited in the same way, we can but wonder whether their husbands approve of it, and if they do not why they don't put a stop to it.

Well, Mr Cornwallis West tried to repress this traffic in his wife's photograph, hut could not, for the photographers had the law on their side. Then the young Jew who was the proprietor of a notorious weekly publication called " Town Talk" thought that there could be no harm in caricaturing (in print) these same pooplo, only that he was not clover enough to distinguish between badinage and libel. Accordingly he treated that caddish section of the population which bought his rubbish first to a hideous burlesque of Mrs West and her supposed dealings with the photographers, and then went further and published a series of the most atrocious libels concerning Mrs Langtry, and concocted a story about a pending divorce suit between that lady and her husband, in which a royal highness and two noblemen, all of whom were named, were to be the co-respondents. This was going too far, and the two husbands seem to have mutually resolved to suppress this paper, which was doing them untold injury, by its libellous "contents-bills," amongst a far larger number of persons who never looked at the papor itself. So Mr Wept and Mr Langtry proseouted the proprietor—this young Jew, Adolphus Rosenberg—who had once been editor of a respectable newspaper, and, being joined by Lord Londeßborough, they brought him to a summary and condign punishment. There was no attempt to deny the crime, not the faintest effort to show that there was a scintilla of truth in what had been printed, and the result was that Rosenberg was sentenced te eighteen months' imprisonment—a sentence which has the full approbation of the public. But this question of photographs has turned up at the justice room of the Mansion House in a very unpleasant way, and ended in a "scene" between the retiring Lord Mayor and several gentlemen whom he caused to be brought before him—an episode which was quite unparalleled in the civic records. It seems that while we were in the height of the struggle with what some people are now pleased to call '• that brave nation the Zulus," it occurred to some photograpers at Natal that the people at home might like to see what kind of people these Zulus were, and accordingly the negatives of soveral groups were eent home, and have been extensively printed from. Well, there are black ladies who are vain of what they regard as their personal charm?, and one couple of these " posed" to a photographer before one of their native kraals. They little imagined the hubbub they would cause in London. Ono of them was a single girl, who, according to the custom of the country, was full dressed when see put on two fillets of beads. The other was a married lady, whose sole garment wa3 a very short cowskin petticoat. One shopkeeper in Gracechurch street exhibited a print of these in his window, and mistaking the sex of the younger person, labelled them " A newly married couple." This excited the anger of the Lord Mayor, who caused the shopkeeper to be summoned before him, and made a furious attack on Mr Alderman Nottago, as being the chief proprietor in the photographic company which printed these portraits. So there was a grand field day, in which tho Lord Mayor got terribly talked to by tho Alderman, the counsel for the Bevoral parties, and had to beat an ignominious retreat from the Bench. I fancy he has not heard the laet of tlm foolish proceeding. I told you in my last letter of the fight that had taken place in a public street between the editor of the "Daily Telegraph" and the propietor-editor of "Truth." The matter has not been allowed to rest. Mr Lawson declined Mr Labouclnr/s ohallenf* to fight with swords or pistols. " 'Tis other times with us to-day," as the gallant Marquis sings in that very pretty opera "Les Cloches de Corneville," which still draws crowded audiences to the Globe Theatre. So Mr Labouchere printed his version of the affair in the next number of "Truth," whereupon Mr Lawson summoned him to the Guildhall Police Court on a ohargo of libel. But Mr

Labouchere Books to justify nil the passages complained .'of, and wants to extract from Mr Lawson the whole history of bis life from the time when he and his father acquired possession of the newspaper which has since brought them so much wealth. Mr Labouchere acted as his own counsel, and few men at the bar could have cross-examined Mr Lawson with as much skill or anything like as much impudence, for the personal encounter between these two whilolm friends has been of the most piquant description. However, after two days of this fun, Sir Sobert Cardon, who is the Magistrate hoaring tho case, resolved not to allow the question of justification to bo gone into further before him, whereupon the matter was adjourned in order to enable Mr Labouchere to apply to the Court of Queen's Bench for a mandavius against the Magistrate. This ho did the day before yosterday, but for this purpose ho employed counsel, as the matter was one of mere law, and Mr Labouchere was not (killed in its mysterious depths. So the matter will have to be argued on the other side, and it is quite possible that the cross-examination may not be resumed for some time to come.

Every year seems to bring us soino improvement in railway travelling, though it must be owned that our improvements are imported ones, and do not spiiDg from any native desire on the part of the railway directors, who have to be forced with any concession to publio requirements. Tho lest novelty, and a very good one it is, is a Pullman dining car, which has just been put on tho trains running on the Great Northern Railway between London and Leeds, and vice versa. A Leeds merchant may now leave his home after breakfast, take his lunch in a taloon during his two hundred miles journey to London, spend throe or four inti in attending tj bu in?ts there, and oomfortabJy take his dinner while he ie being whirled homo again, in time to go to bed at his usual hour. This, however, is for people with money; for middle sized purses there is nothing of the kind.

Sir Rowland Hill is to have a memo;i*l after all. The failure of the Mansion House scheme, it has been speedily discovered was owing in the main to the personal unpopularity of tie Lord Mayor, so that when he had signified his intention to send back the money to the donors who had remitted it to him, a number of gentlemen in the city formed themselves into a committee, and have appealed to their fellow-citizens, who have already subscribed a very handsome sum. They feel compelled, out of deference, I supposo, to the Post Offico itself as an institution, to invite the Postmaster General to be the chairman of the committee, but it must be confessed that thoro is a long interval between Sir Rowland Hill and Lord John Manners in point of merit. One will be remembered throughout the history of this country as the inventor of the penny postage ; the other will soon be forgotten, for he is a man of tho merest routine.

If the past Hummer season was an unusually dull one, the approaching winter season promises to be a more than usually bright and gay one, probably because the prophets tell us that we are going to have a very severe time of it out of doors, and of the frost that is said to be in store for us we have already had two or three very sharp foretastes. There is more doing at the theatres than I h%ve known in November for several years past. We have her Majesty's Theatre open for the performance of Italian Opera at "popular prices," that is to say about half the money whioh is charged during the summer. The reduction is mainly owing to the absence ofJthose p,ima donnas who.'exact such exorbitant salaries, but it must not be supposed that the performances are at all the worse; some may even think them better, and certainly they draw crowded houses and the audiences display the utmost enthusiasm for high class music and good singing. Then Mr Henry IrviDg, who has been our foremost exponent of Shakspeare for some years, produced the " Merchant of Venice" at the Lyceum Theatre last Saturday night, and, while satisfying the professional critics, has given infinitely greater delight to the larger number of people who are outside the newspaper cfficea, while Miss Ellen Terry's performance of Portia is about the finest piece of acting seen sinoe the retirement of Helen Faucit. Nor are the lighter forms of amusement negleeted. "H.M.S. Pinafore" is having a very long voyage at the Opera Comique, and Mr Grossmith seems likely to ocoupy the post of First liord of the Admiralty longer than any momW «>f Z'ailmLueiit, iriiiie the two or three adaptations from French comic operas which are being played at other houses are well patronised, more for their music, which is very pretty, than for the acting and singing, which, it "must be confessed, is very poor, compared with the original performances.

Swindles abound, and every month sees some new, and for the most part ingenious, form of fraud invented. The latest scheme which has been exposed is that of " the wellread swindler," a German of middle age, who has been victimising the professional classes Eretty extensively, and especially those who appen to be authors of books. His plan was to call upon them, express admiration of their writings, and then explain that he had just arrived by steamboat from some Continental port, but that he had been robbed of his portmanteau whioh contained all his money. Of course a loan followed, and generally nothing less than ten pounds was offered to this foreigner in distress, whose most intimate London friend was invariably out of town. This swindle has flourished to a remarkable extent, and every day for somej weeks witnessed a new victim, until some one exposed the trick. But a greater number of people have been taken in by the trick of the • secretary to a society which boasts of having the Lord Chancellor for its patron. It entered the fertile brain of this secretary to send out an appeal for funds and to enclose his circular in a large official looking envelope, on tho outside of which was lithographed " Cairns," in exact imitation of the noble earl's signature. Well, cruel disappointment has been caused to a number of recipients. Every barrister, on seeing this envelope, felt sure he was appointed to a good post; every clergyman saw in that magic word visions of the offer of a good benefice, if not of tho deanery which then happened to be vacant. How bitter must have been their feelings on pulling out the circular! In some cases these letters were sent after people who were abroad, and there have been loud complaints of the expense to which they were put by these begging letters being sent after them.