the following: "The price of this book at retail is $1.00 net. o dealer is licensed to sell it at a less price, and the sale at a less price will be treated as an infringement of the copyright." In Bobbs-Merrill Company v. Snellenbrug, 131 Fed. Rep., 530, it was held in the Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylva nia, that such a notice did not entitle the publishers to control the retail price of the book so as to render the sale of the book at a reduced price an infringement of the copyright. District Judge Holland pointed out that the result of all the decisions in cases of this kind is to the effect that when the owner of a copyright transfers title to a copyrighted book, although under an agreement restrict ing its use, or price at which it can be sold at retail, and the book is sold in violation of this agreement, his only remedy is for breach of contract, and cannot be restrained by virtue of the copyright statutes. But does a notice inserted in the books of a publisher amount to the retention by him of such an ownership, when the copy is transferred, as would entitle him to protec tion under the copyright law? This question was answered in the negative, and it was held that the copyright statutes cannot be invoked to control the retailing trade of books, the title to which the copyright owner has transferred. When a book publisher transfers his title to a copy of a book, either to reader, subscriber or retailer, he has exer cised his sole liberty of vending that par ticular copy, and it is the only right the exer cise of which is protected by the copyright law. It is suggested by the court that if it is de sirable to further control the matter of sale at retail in the possession of the retailer, it must be by agreement with the seller and his . vendees, and that such a notice in the book cannot -work an infringement. Tt would simply be a violation of contract with a pur chaser, and the publisher must look for his remedy to their contract. The attempted restriction will no doubt be fought io the bitter end, and it may require
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the decision of the highest court in the land to settle it. .UNE result of the Beck case (says The Law Journal, London) has been to revive the demand for the establishment of a Court of Criminal Appeal—a demand to which fur ther force has been given by the release of Isaac da Costa. These two cases of mis taken identity go to show—what, of course, needed no demonstration—that the admin istration of justice is not free from error. That they are to be regarded as proving the necessity of a Court of Criminal Appeal is by no means so certain. Apart from the main ground on which the formation of such a tribunal is to be opposed—that it would, in destroying the finality of their de cisions, tend to weaken the sense of respon sibility under which juries now discharge their duties—there are numerous points to be disposed of before an unlimited right of appeal in criminal cases can be shown to be desirable. The great majority of prisoners are poor. A petition to the Home Office is an inexpensive thing, but an appeal to a Court of Criminal Appeal would be costly. "The door of appeal is open to the rich man, closed to the poor. In practice the result of the right of criminal appeal is that there is one law for the rich, another for the poor." That is the view expressed of the Amer ican system in a recent number of THF. GREEN BAG, and it is difficult to see how a similar result could be avoided here. Not less in structive is the experience of America in re gard to delay. In Xew York County, dur ing the five years from 1898 to 1902, the average interval between a conviction and the decision on appeal was fourteen months. Any considerable delay in the determination of criminal cases is bound to bring the ad ministration of justice into disrepute. Another point to be considered is that a Court of Criminal Appeal, like any other judicial tribunal, would be compelled to act according to the settled rules of evidence. The Home Office is unfettered in this re spect; it can act on evidence which could not properly be brought before a Court of
