"Yes; But If Jones Merely Copies
One, Smith May Come After Him And Copy It Also.
Jones will
probably desire to hinder Smith from having any evidence of such a
patent." As to the ordinary
Borrowing and returning of books, the
poorest laborer's child in Boston might be trusted as honest; but
when a question of trade came up - of commercial competition - then
the librarian was bound to bethink himself that his countrymen are
very smart. "I hope," said the librarian, "you will let them know
in England how grateful we are for their present." And I hereby
execute that librarian's commission.
I shall always look back to social life in Boston with great
pleasure. I met there many men and women whom to know is a
distinction, and with whom to be intimate is a great delight. It
was a Puritan city, in which strict old Roundhead sentiments and
laws used to prevail; but now-a-days ginger is hot in the mouth
there, and, in spite of the war, there were cakes and ale. There
was a law passed in Massachusetts in the old days that any girl
should be fined and imprisoned who allowed a young man to kiss her.
That law has now, I think, fallen into abeyance, and such matters
are regulated in Boston much as they are in other large towns
farther eastward. It still, I conceive, calls itself a Puritan
city; but it has divested its Puritanism of austerity, and clings
rather to the politics and public bearing of its old fathers than
to their social manners and pristine severity of intercourse.
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