rate in its written and spoken speech, the English tendency
is no less constantly towards a growing laxity; and while the American
has been sternly and conscientiously at work pruning the inelegancies
out of his language, the Briton has been lightheartedly taking these
same inelegancies to himself. It is obviously impossible that such a
twofold tendency can go on for long without the gulf between the quality
of the respective languages becoming appreciably narrower.

* * * * *

The American writers who now occupy places on the staffs of London
journals are thoroughly deserving of their places. They have earned
these and retain them on the ground of their capacity as news gatherers,
and through the brilliancy of their descriptive writing. They possess
what is described as "newspaper ability" as opposed to "literary
ability." It is, nevertheless, the fact that in the majority of the
newspaper offices, the "copy" of these writers is permitted to pass
through the press with an immunity from interference on the part either
of editor or proof-reader, which, a decade back, would not have been
possible in any London office. Thus the British public, unwarned and
unconscious, is daily absorbing at its breakfast table, and in the
morning and evening trains, American newspaper English, which is the
output of English newspaper offices. It is not now contended that this
English is any worse than the public would be likely to receive from the
same class of English writers, but the fact itself is to be noted. I am
not prepared to agree with Mr. Andrew Lang in holding the English writer
necessarily blameworthy who "in serious work introduces, needlessly,
into our tongue an American phrase." Such introductions, however
needless, may materially enrich the language, and I should, even with
the permission of Mr. Lang, extend the same latitude to the introduction
of Scotticisms.

A more important matter for consideration is the present condition of
the copyright laws of the two countries. English publishers understand
well enough why it is occasionally cheaper, or, taking all the
conditions together, more advantageous to have put into type in the
United States rather than in Great Britain the work of a standard
English novelist, and to bring the English edition into print from a
duplicate set of American plates. On the other hand, it is exceptional
for a novel, or for any book by an American writer, to be put