"Chemical Solution"), "he will find that he does
not in direct terms apply the encomiums given
to the plaintiffs preparation to his own; he does
not even say that the preparation he is selling is
made by the plaintiff, and yet, for all that, nobody
can look at all these things without observing
that the name and the testimonials of the plaintiff
are so craftily employed as to be well calculated
to produce in the minds of ordinary readers the
impression that the mixture or solution prepared
and sold by the defendant is the same as
that to which these testimonials are applicable,
that is to say, the mixture or solution of the
plaintiff."
While on the subject of medicine, we may
possibly be able to throw a little light upon Mr.
Blank's uncertainty of mind, as to whether the
miraculous specifics which are offered to him as
the discoveries of our most celebrated physicians
are so in reality.
Sir James Clarke, the well-known physician,
on one occasion complained to the Court of
Chancery that a London chemist was selling
pills which he called "Sir J. Clarke's Consumption
Pills." Moreover, he informed the court
that the chemist had attached the following
audacious story in recommendation of his quackery:
"By Her Majesty the Queen's permission.
Sir James Clarke's Consumption Pills. I am
fully aware that, by introducing my cure for
consumption as a patent medicine, it will create
some astonishment in the minds of the profession,
but it is only by having recourse to such
means that the knowledge of the discovery can
be disseminated amongst those unfortunate
persons whom it has been my great aim to relieve."
It was evident, from the wording of this, that
the unscrupulous chemist wished the public to
suppose that Sir James Clarke was addressing
them, and that the chemist was, upon the whole,
perpetrating as cool and impudent a fraud as his
perverted ingenuity could suggest. For all this,
however, Sir James Clarke could not obtain the
injunction for which he prayed, the court
informing him that his proper remedy was an
action for libel. They came to this decision, we
believe, with some reluctance, but there was no
other alternative. It was to no purpose that
the counsel employed by Sir James, directed the
attention of the judges to a case tried before
Lord Eldon, in which Lord Byron had succeeded
in restraining a publisher from publishing as his,
a poem which he had not written. "If Sir
James Clarke had been in the habit of making
pills as Lord Byron was in the habit of making
poems," said Lord Langdale, "the case might
Lave been different."
A few other points connected with this subject
may be worthy of notice. We have said, that
before the Court of Chancery will interfere to
protect a tradesman, there must have been an evident
attempt to mislead the public. Now, this does not
refer to the commercial, but to the ordinary public.
"The way in which the court deals with these
cases," said the Master of the Rolls (Romilly),
"is not to see whether the manufacturers
themselves should distinguish the goods sold, but
whether the public, who may be easily misled, would
be deceived." The case to which he was more
immediately referring, was that in which a needle
manufacturer, who was in the habit of labelling
his goods as warranted and made solely by
Shrimpton and Hooper, complained of a rival
tradesman for advertising his needles in
wrappers of the same colour, &c., and bearing the
inscription, "Invented and sold by Shrimpton
Turvey."
A needle manufacturer might not possibly
have been deceived by this inscription; but the
chances are, that Mrs. Blank would have been
wofully taken in.
The chances are, indeed, that Mrs. Blank
may be very frequently misled in her shopping
experience. In presenting Mr. Blank, for
instance, with a "registered paletot," she may
very readily suppose that she is furnishing him
with " Nicoll's registered llama-cloth paletot,"
but the two things are made by different makers,
nor can the law prevent either from advertising
his garment as " the registered paletot."
We will not weary our readers with these
unpleasant examples of commercial laxity.
Unhappily, we could multiply the instances ad
infinitum, but instances enough, we hope, have
been referred to, to disclose the existing state of
the law on the subject. Moreover, before the
present session of Parliament is brought to a
close, a change in this phase of our criminal law
is probable.
So long, however, as we find merchants of
respectability attaching labels to their goods
which attempt a fraud upon the public; so long
as we find publishers resorting to such wretched
expedients as the publication of self-styled
"sequels" to popular books; we can scarcely
wonder at the advertising jugglery of the more
humble shopkeeper.
TURKISH STREET FOUNTAINS.
THERE were many projects afoot one morning
at Misseri's breakfast-table. Some were going
up the Genoese round tower at Galata, for the
sake of the grand view of all the blue breadth of
the Bosphorus; others, were bound to climb the
great fire tower over in Stamboul, to sketch the
long broken chains of aqueducts built by some
forgotten purple-wearer; some, were for boating,
to the castles of Europe and Asia, intending to
see Barbarossa the pirate's tomb, and Godfrey
de Bouillon's plane-tree, besides a score or two of
the Sultan's tinsel Italian palaces; one or two
were off for the ruined Greek palace of the
Blachernæ; and others were going to take horse
and traverse the whole length of the triple
ramparts, which always seemed to me to resemble
a collection of all the old invalid English
fortresses, drawn up to be reviewed by old Time
himself; half a dozen were for shady seclusion
in the bazaars. But Rocket and the present
inditer were bent on making a tour of the
beautiful Turkish street fountains.
Breakfast was over, the fish had succeeded
the cutlets, eggs the fish, grapes the eggs,
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