The great French playwrights can protect themselves by taking out American copyright, but if one of them omits this formality, the "conquerors" immediately seize upon his work and translate it, omitting intentionally all mention of the real author on their programmes.This season a play was produced of which the first act was taken from Guy de Maupassant, the second and third "adapted"from Sardou, with episodes introduced from other authors to brighten the mixture.The piece thus patched together is signed by a well-known Anglo-Saxon name, and accepted by our moral public, although the original of the first act was stopped by the Parisian police as too immoral for that gay capital.
Of what use would it be to "discover" a new continent unless the explorers were to reap some such benefits? Let us take every advantage that our proud position gives us, plundering the foreign authors, making penal settlements of their capitals, and ignoring their foolish customs and prejudices when we travel among them! In this way shall we effectually impress on the inferior races across the Atlantic the greatness of the American nation.