LITERARY PIRACY.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2507, 18 January 1877, Page 2

LITERARY PIRACY.

The Thames Advertiser has fully shown that it is quite possible for two writers to hit on the same idea, and one make use of it first: and moreover that not only the idea is acted on, but that it is possible for writers, as widely separated as the distance from the Thames to Dunedin, to use the same words and phrases. Either this is possible, or the Thames Advertiser has been guilty of a palpable and mean act of literary piracy, as the subjoined extracts from the Otago Guardian of January 9th and the Thames Advertiser of January 17th will suffice to show. To understand this the better, it may be necessary to say that at Otago a woman resisted the efforts of the Clerk of the Local Board of Health to remove her child from her; the child was suffering from an infectious disease, and the mother argued that no one was as well qualified to look after it as the mother herself. On this case the Otago Guardian wrote and commented, and the Thames Advertiser took the opportunity to write a leader on the Health Act, which, after giving a slight digest of the Act, proceeded to comment on the same case as the Guardian had done previously, and in some cases in the very same words or in phrases so slightly altered that their resemblance can hardly have been accidental, as a cursory glance at these passages will prove—

Otago Guardian, Jan. 9. Thames Advertiser, Let any parent place Jan. 17. him or herself in the posi- A very painful case Of tion of one who has lost isolation has just occurred four children by death, atDunedin,whereaparent and having but two re- who has lost four children maining is asked to allow by death is r.sked to part one of them dangerously with one of the two reill to be taken away from maining ones, suffering her to be tended by stran- from an infectious disease, gers. It is a heavy sacri- under the provisions of flee to make for the public this Act. It is an instance good, and we think there cf a heavy sacrifice under is no heart so callous as the Act, made for the pubnot to bemovedtosympa- lie good, and we think thy by such a heart- there is no heart so callous broken appeal. as not to be moved to sympathy by such aheai Ibroken appeal as was put forth to the officer entrusted with the duty of seeing that the provisions of the law were carried out.

From the second extracts it will be seen that the Guardian and Advertiser quote the very*words of the woman herself when in court, and in commenting on them are singularly alike in phraseology, leaving no doubt that the editor was fresh from the perusal of the article, or, imagining that his theft would- not be detected, wilfully appropriated the ideas which ha 3 originated with another. Guardian. Advertiser. "I will go down on my "I will go down on my very knees and beseech of very knees and beseech of you to leave the child to a you to leave the child to a mother's'care. The child mother's care. The child would die-broken-heaited would die broken-hearted if she. was taken away if she was taken away from from her mother. I beg her mother. I beg o2 you, of you, as a gentleman, to as a gentleman, to leave leave the child w Ith me. the child with me. I have I have had six children, had six children, and only and only two remain, and two remain, and if it is if it is the Lord's v.'ll to the Lord's will to take take them, let me attend them, let me attend them them to the last. It may tto the Irst. It may be the be the law of man, but it law of man, but it is not is not the law of the Lo_;d, the law of the Lord, to to make a motbjer paio make a mother paii with with her child. As a gen- her child. As a gentletleman, you will not ask man, you will not ask to to take her away." Surely take her away." We must if there is any other way nevertheless entirely enof meeting the case a deaf dorse the wisdom of tbe ear will not be turned to law which provides for such, a Jieai trending ap- such removals in the case peal. .We entirely endorse of iifectious diseases, althe wisdom of the law though the cases must be which provides for such seveve before such a step removals in the case of in- is. taken. The c'.rcumfectious disease. But the stances may be painful, cases must be extreme and but the health and' safety exceptional which demand of the community must its being put in force, be considered, and the and we can hardly think provisions of the Act comthat this case of sickness plied with. We shall take in a sparsely populated an early opportunity of district is one of them, return'ig to tlrs subject. And if it is not, and if unnecessary severity is being exercised, the actors in this painful drama will be doing much ,to excite a ■*» spirit in the community that will arrest the action of the law, and prevent its ever being put in force -' even in cases of the most xu'gent kind. From this it will be seen that in* morality exists elsewhere than on the turf, and it being the duty of every honest journalist to expose such practices as these in the interest both of reader and writer, we wo.uld ask our contemporary to remember the saying? "Be sure your sin will find you out."