44NOTES.
As tending to show the warmth of heart and kindliness of manner of Mr. Justice Brewer, lately appointed a member of the Supreme Court of the United States, we publish the following letter written by him to his former associates upon the Supreme Bench of the State of Kansas when he resigned as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of that State to accept the position of United States Circuit Judge of the Eighth Circuit Topeka, April 8, 1884. Hon. A. H. Horton, Hon. D. M. Valentine. Good and valued Friends, — I have to-day returned to the State of Kansas the trust which for many years she has generously confided to my care; and in so doing I sever the official relations which I have sustained to you as Justices of her Supreme Court, sharers with me in the honors, labors, and responsibilities of that high office. It is not strange that during the last few days my mind has often gone back over the line of our mutual experiences and been filled with pleasant memories. Few men have been so fortunate as I in official relations. The court has, thanks to your faithful and unremitting labors, been enabled to keep even with the constantly increasing volume of its duties. We have met on the first of each month and called every case on the docket; and within a few weeks in each case the opinion has been filed. The " law's delay" has to the litigant in Kansas courts become an obsolete phrase. To-day I leave you with a clean docket. Every case submitted prior to the first of March has been decided, and my successor comes on to an open field. The officers of the court have been ever prompt, efficient, and courteous, and I part from them with regret. But more than all, in our personal relations there has been that which touches me deeply, and which blossoms to-day as a bright flower in the sunny gardens of memory. It is not merely that negatively there has been no discord, no disagree ment, but affirmatively that I have been the recipient at your hands of such constant and uniform kindness and assistance. No one knows so well as I, how much of the joys and success of my life I owe to you. While we have had many difficult cases and questions to consider, have often differed in our views and opinions, and have had animated and prolonged discussions, yet I cannot recall a single instance of an unkind, harsh, or impatient word to me or of me, falling from your lips during all these years. Such an unbroken line of happy experience is a rare felicity, and I thank you with my whole heart for it.
I may not, in the varied relations of my new po sition, expect such uniformity of felicity; and may realize in its trials, burdens, and embarrassments something of the experience of many who reaching after the higher places in life find that success is only the sad good-by to peace of mind and sweet contentment Again thanking you for all you have done to add to the rich experiences of my past years, and wish ing you that continued confidence of the good people of Kansas which you have so honorably earned and so justly deserved, I am, with great respect, Your late associate and constant friend. David J. Brewer. While it may be said that there is no statute law of copyright in China, there is, on the other hand, an unwritten law that is equally effective. From a paper on this subject, read some time since at a meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society, we learn that on the titlepage of newly published books in China there is not infrequently a caution against their unauthorized publication; showing at once that literary property is liable to be sto len, and that redress is afforded to authors thus wronged. The Penal Code, however, will be searched in vain for an enactment on the subject of copyright. Chinese law, indeed, has never conceived it necessary to specify that particular form of robbery which consists in despoiling a scholar of the fruit of his toil, any more than to name the products of husbandmen and artisans as under the protection of law; all alike being regarded as property by natural right Hence, those who infringe the rights of an author are liable to a punishment of one hundred blows, and three years' deportation if they print and sell his works without authority; but if the trespass has gone no further than printing, no copies having been sold, the punishment inflicted is only fifty blows and forfeiture of the book and blocks. The right of exclusive publication, thus protected, is not only vested in the author, but is held in per petuity by his heirs and assigns. Equal protection is given to inventors and discoverers; the section of the Penal Code that takes cognizance of larce nies of a grave character acting at the same time both as a copyright and a patent law. The pro ductions of artists also come under its operation; and in all these cases the rights of the individual in his property, whether it be literary, artistic, or mechanical, are held to be identical in principle, and are treated as equally inherent and inalienable.
