his time he wrote:

Relief of Mafeking (May 18, 1900). The news came at 9.17 P.M.
Before 10 all London was in the streets, gone mad with joy. By then
the news was all over the American continent.

Clemens had been talking copyright a good deal in London, and
introducing it into his speeches. Finally, one day he was summoned
before a committee of the House of Lords to explain his views. His old
idea that the product of a man's brain is his property in perpetuity
and not for any term of years had not changed, and they permitted him
to dilate on this (to them) curious doctrine. The committee consisted of
Lords Monkswell, Knutsford, Avebury, Farrar, and Thwing. When they asked
for his views he said:

"In my opinion the copyright laws of England and America need only
the removal of the forty-two-year limit and the return to perpetual
copyright to be perfect. I consider that at least one of the reasons
advanced in justification of limited copyright is fallacious--namely,
the one which makes a distinction between an author's property and real
estate, and pretends that the two are not created, produced, or acquired
in the same way, thus warranting a different treatment of the two by
law."

Continuing, he dwelt on the ancient doctrine that there was no property
in an idea, showing how the far greater proportion of all property
consisted of nothing more than elaborated ideas--the steamship,
locomotive, telephone, the vast buildings in the world, how all of
these had been constructed upon a basic idea precisely as a book is
constructed, and were property only as a book is property, and therefore
rightly subject to the same laws. He was carefully and searchingly
examined by that shrewd committee. He kept them entertained and
interested and left them in good-nature, even if not entirely converted.
The papers printed his remarks, and London found them amusing.

A few days after the copyright session, Clemens, responding to the
toast, "Literature," at the Royal Literary Fund Banquet, made London
laugh again, and early in June he was at the Savoy Hotel welcoming Sir
Henry Irving back to England after one of his successful American tours.

On the Fourth of July (1900) Clemens dined with the Lord Chief-Justice,
and later attended an American banquet at the Hotel Cecil. He arrived
late, when a number of the guests were already going. They insisted,
however, that he make a speech, which he did, and considered the evening