Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/124

 explained the drastic nature of the Copyright Act.

If any public man who had sold the copyright in a speech used even a single sentence of that speech while addressing an audience, he was liable to prosecution. This practically sealed the mouths of twenty-one speakers, and so forth, and so forth. The articles were lavishly illustrated by snapshots showing Blake on his hurried taxicab tour; his getting out at one man's residence after another, and his final arrival at Stranleigh House with the loot. Pictures of the post-office orders were given, together with some appalling portraits of Lord Stranleigh himself, who, as reproduced by a rapid printing press, seemed capable of any scoundrelism.

For a week the controversy raged, and Stranleigh endured the experience of being called a knave by one half of the British Press, and a fool by the other half. Toward the end of the week it was evident that a new issue had arisen in British politics, namely, that when the Lords were done with, the millionaires would have to be taken in hand. The poor, dear, innocent British public was in danger of being corrupted by a multi-millionaire like Stranleigh.

Commercial virtue on the rampage is a potent