TRICKS OF ADVERTISING SPECULATORS.

TRICKS OF ADVERTISING SPECULATORS.

E have received a circular from the Silsby Manufacturing Company of Seneca Falls, setting forth a grievance of theirs against the Firemen’s Relief Association of Worcester, Mass. It appears that the committee of the association last fall asked the Silsby Company to loan them certain cuts which it had had made expressly for illustrating a book issued by the company entitled “ Fire Service in Great Cities.” This book was very handsomely gotten up by the Silsby Company, was illustrated and prepared at great expense, and their property rights in it were duly protected by copyright. With their usual courtesy, the company loaned to the Relief Association ten or a dozen of their cuts, which were printed in a book descriptive of the fire department of that city. Subsequently the Silsby Company ascertained that these cuts had been duplicated while in the possession, presumably, of the Relief Association of Worcester, and were being reproduced in various books descriptive of the fire service of several other cities. Naturally, the Silsby Manufacturing Company feel themselves greatly aggrieved, and hold the Relief Association of Worcester accountable for having permitted its copyrighted cuts to be duplicated while in their possession.

While we condemn, in terms as vigorous as possible, the outrage that has been thus perpetrated, we are inclined to make a little excuse for the Worcester association, for the reason that we ourselves have had a little experience of this kind. We have ascertained that these books descriptive of the fire service of different cities are gotten up by speculating publishers—we should, perhaps, more properly call them speculative advertising canvassers—who obtain from the officers of the departments the privilege to publish such a book, and to make their profit out of the advertising which they can secure for its pages. In this way these speculators work, apparently, by authority, and we have positive knowledge that several books purporting to be histories of the fire service in different cities have been thus prepared by speculators, who receive their compensation from the advertisements of manufacturers that they are able to secure. We have been applied to on several occasions for the loan of cuts and for information to be used in these books, and have refused to surrender the cuts except upon the written orders of the chiefs of the departments in question. In this way we have fared better than the Silsby Company has done, for we have saved our cuts.