VOLUME VII SLICE III Convention to Copyright (continued 7)

The local god of Coptos, as of Khemmis (Akhmīm, q.v.), was the ithyphallic Min; but in late times Isis was of equal importance in the city. Min was especially the god of the desert routes. Petrie’s excavations on the site of the temple brought to light remains of all periods, the most remarkable objects being three very primitive limestone statues of the god with figures of an elephant, swords of sword-fish, sea-shells, &c., engraved upon them: there were also found some very peculiar terra-cottas of the Old Kingdom, and the decree of an Antef belonging to the latter part of the Middle Kingdom, deposing the monarch for siding with the king’s enemy.

COPTS, the early native Christians of Egypt and their successors of the Monophysite sect, now racially the purest representatives of the ancient Egyptians. The name is a Europeanized form, dating perhaps from the 14th century, of the Arabic ķibt (or ķubt), which, in turn, is derived from the Greek Αἰγύπτιοι, “Egyptians” (the Copts in the Coptic language likewise style themselves , “people of Egypt,” “Egyptians”).

The limited application of the name is explained by the circumstances of the time when Mahomet sent forth his challenge to the world and ’Amr conquered Egypt (A.D. 627-641). At that time the population of Egypt was wholly Christian (except for a sprinkling of Jews, &c.), divided into two fiercely hostile sects, the Monophysites and the Melkites. The division was in great measure racial. The Melkites, adherents of the orthodox or court religion sanctioned by the council of Chalcedon, were mainly of foreign extraction, from the various Hellenistic races which peopled the Eastern Roman empire, while the bulk of the population, the true Egyptians, were Monophysite. Amongst the latter political aspirations, apart from religion, may be said not to have existed. It has generally been held that the Copts invited and aided the Moslems to seize the country in order that at all costs they might be freed from the yoke of the state religion imposed by the Eastern Roman Empire; but Dr A. J. Butler has shown this view to be untenable, while admitting that the religious feuds of the Christians made the task of the Arabs easy. The mysterious Muķauķis, who treacherously handed over Alexandria, impregnable as it was for Arab warriors, and then capitulated, was none other than Cyrus, the Melkite patriarch and governor of Egypt; the native Monophysite party, however, smarting under the persecution of the Emperor Heraclius, seemed to have most to gain by a change of masters. The prophet Mahomet himself had prescribed indulgence to the Copts before his death, and ’Amr was mercifully disposed to them. Although they offered resistance in some places, after the Roman forces had been destroyed or had abandoned Egypt they generally acquiesced in the inevitable; and when in 646 a Roman fleet and army recaptured Alexandria and harried the Delta, the Copts helped the Moslems to cast out the Christian invaders. Some of the Copts embraced Islam at once, but as yet they formed practically a solid Christian nation under the protection of the conquering Arabs, and the religious and political distinction between the “true believers” and the Christians was so sharp that a native Christian turning Moslem was no longer a Copt, i.e. Egyptian; he practically changed his nationality.

The beginnings of Christianity in Egypt are obscure; the existence of it among the natives (as opposed to the mixed “Greek” population of Egypt and Alexandria which produced so many leading figures and originated leading doctrines in the early church) can be traced back as far as the Decian persecution (A.D. 249-251) in the purely Egyptian names of several martyrs. St Anthony (c. A.D. 270) was a Copt; so also was Pachomius, the founder of Egyptian monasticism at the beginning of the 4th century. The scriptures were translated into Coptic not later than the 4th century. A religion founded on morality and with a clear doctrine of life after death was especially congenial to the Egyptians; thus the lower orders in the country embraced Christianity fervently, while the Alexandrian pagans were lost in philosophical speculation and Neoplatonism was spread amongst the rich “Greek” landowners; these last, partly out of religious enthusiasm, partly from greed, annoyed and oppressed their Christian peasantry. Egypt was then terribly impoverished; the upper country was constantly overrun by raiders from Nubia and the desert; and the authority of the imperial government was too weak to interfere actively on behalf of the Christians. The monasteries, however, were refuges that could bid defiance to the most powerful of the pagan aristocracy as well as to barbarian hordes, and became centres of united action that, at the summons of Shenoute, the organizer of the national church, swept away the idols of the oppressors in riot and bloodshed. In the course of the 5th century the Christians reached a position in which they were able to treat the pagans mercifully as a feeble remnant.

The Copts had little interest in theology; they were content to take their doctrine as prepared for them by the subtler minds of their Greek leaders at Alexandria, choosing the simplest form when disputes arose. In 325 their elected patriarch, Athanasius, and his following of Greeks and Copts, triumphed at the council of Nicaea against Arius; but in 451 the banishment of Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria, by the council of Chalcedon created a great schism, the Egyptian church holding to his Monophysite tenets (see Coptic Church, below), while the Catholic and imperial party at Constantinople ever sought to further the “Melkite” cause in Egypt at the expense of the native church. Thenceforward there were generally two patriarchs, belonging to the rival communities, and the Copts were oppressed by the Melkites; Heraclius, in 638 after the repulse of the Persians, endeavoured to unite the churches, but, failing in that, he persecuted the Monophysites more severely than ever before, until ‘Amr brought Egypt under the Moslem rule of ’Omar, as has been related above. Under the persecution many Copts had gone over to the Melkites, but now it was the turn of the Melkites, as supporters of the emperor of Constantinople, to suffer, and they almost entirely disappeared from Egypt, though a remnant headed by a patriarch of Alexandria of the Orthodox Christians has survived to this day.

But after a few years of the mild rule of ‘Amr the Egyptians began to be squeezed for the benefit of the Moslem exchequer and persecuted for their religion. Many of the more thoughtful and sober Christians must long have been disgusted with religious strife, and had already embraced the simple and congenial doctrines of Islam; others went over for the sake of material gain. Conflicts arose from time to time between the Mahommedan minority and the Christians. The Copts were excellent scribes and accountants and were continued in their posts under the Arab rule; the government offices were full of them; sometimes even the wazirate (vizierate) was held by a Copt, and that too in a time of persecution of the Christians. The pride of the Copts, still seen in the objection which the poorest among them have to engaging in any mean work or trade, was a serious danger, perhaps even a chief source of their troubles, in earlier days; devout Moslems on more than one occasion stirred the mob to fury when they saw Christians lording it over “true believers.” The lower orders of the Copts were continually oppressed. Thus there was every inducement amongst the Christians to turn Mahommedan. Arab tribes, too, were encouraged to settle in Egypt until the Mahommedans exceeded the Copts in numbers.

The history of the Copts consists on the one hand of the record of religious strife, of growing scandals in the church, such as simony, and attempted reforms; and on the other hand of persecutions at the hands of the Moslems. As examples of the severity of the persecutions, it may be noted that, in the 8th century, the monks not only were compelled to pay a capitation tax, but were branded with name and number, civilians were oppressed with heavy taxation, churches demolished, pictures and crosses destroyed (722-723). Degrading dresses were imposed upon the Christians (849-850); later, under Hakim (997), they were compelled to wear heavy crosses and black turbans as an ignominious distinction. Salaheddin (Saladin) in 1171 reenforced these statutes and defiled the churches. In 1301, the blue turban was introduced, but many Copts preferred a change of religion to the adoption of this head-dress. In 1348 a religious war, attended by the destruction of churches and mosques and great loss of life, raged at Cairo between the Copts and Mahommedans, and large numbers of the former embraced Islam. Their oppression practically ceased under Mehemet Ali (1811).

There have been very few cases of conversion from Mahommedanism to Christianity; and, as intermarriage of Christians with Mahommedans implied conversion to Islam, the Copts have undoubtedly preserved the race of the Egyptians as it existed at the time of the Arab conquest in remarkable purity. The Coptic agricultural population (fellahīn) in the villages of Upper Egypt and elsewhere are not markedly different from the Mahommedan fellahīn, who, of course, are of the same stock, but mixed with Arab blood. The Copts in the towns, who have always been engaged in sedentary occupations, as scribes and handicraftsmen, have a more delicate frame and complexion, and may have mingled with Syrian and Armenian Christians.

According to the 1907 census, there were 667,036 orthodox Copts in Egypt, or less than 1⁄14th of the total population, this being the same proportion as in 1830, when, according to Lane, they numbered about 150,000. The number of churches and monasteries at the same time had risen from 146 to 450, not including Protestant chapels nor Coptic Catholic churches. At the 1907 census the total number of Christians in Egypt described as Copts was 706,322; among them there were 24,710 Protestants and 14,576 Roman Catholics.

Monogamy is strict among the Copts, and divorce is granted only for adultery. Circumcision of both sexes is common before baptism. In regard to dress, at present only the clergy retain the old distinctive costume and black turban. The rest of the Copts dress exactly like their Moslem brethren, from whom they can be distinguished only by the cross which many of them still have tattooed just below the palm of the right hand. Since the British occupation of the country there has been a tendency amongst the Coptic women to give up the veil, which they had borrowed from the Mahommedans; this is especially noticeable at places like Assiût, where, thanks to the efforts of American missionaries, female education has made much progress.

In trades and professions, so long as the Copts had no foreign competition to contend against, they maintained their supremacy over the rest of the population. They filled government offices; in towns and villages they monopolized trades and professions requiring care and skill. They were the accountants, the architects, the goldsmiths, the carpenters, the land-surveyors, the bonesetters, &c. But, with the extension of railways and agricultural roads and the increased facilities of communication and prosperity, there has been a great influx of Italian, Greek, Armenian and other Levantine workmen, who, with their better tools, are undoubtedly superior to the Copts, and have proved most formidable rivals. Furthermore, the importation of cheap European wares of every description is slowly killing all native industry. Lastly, since the British, as the dominant race, have filled most posts of responsibility in the government, the Moslems, in general, are obliged to content themselves with the subordinate posts which in the past they left to the Copts. Some Copts have attained high office, and in 1908 a Copt became prime minister. Moreover, the Copts have to a certain extent made up for the ground they lose elsewhere by engaging in agriculture and banking, and there are now to be found many rich Coptic landowners and farmers, especially in Upper Egypt.

Language.—The language spoken by the Copts was of various dialects, named Sahidic, Akhmimic, Fayumic, &c., descended from the ancient Egyptian with more or less admixture of Greek (for the Coptic dialects see Egypt: Language). Coptic, however, has been entirely extinct as a spoken language for over 200 years, having been supplanted by Arabic; in the 13th century it was already so much decayed that Arabic translations of the liturgies were necessary. The Gospels, however, are still read in the churches in the Bohairic dialect. This dialect appears in literature later than the others, having become of importance only with the extinction of Greek in Lower Egypt; for a time it shared the field with Sahidic, after the disappearance of Akhmimic and Fayumic, but eventually displaced it in the churches, where it now survives alone.

Coptic literature is almost entirely religious, and consists mainly of translations from the Greek. Such was the enthusiasm for Christianity amongst the lower classes in Egypt that translations of the Bible were made into three of the dialects of Coptic before the council of Chalcedon; they probably date back at least as early as the middle of the 4th century. For the dwellers in the Delta the Greek version was probably sufficient, until the break with the Greek (Melkite) Church in the 5th century induced them to make a separate translation in their own native northern or Bohairic dialect. The Gnostic heresy, otherwise known only through the works of its opponents, is illustrated in some Coptic MSS. of the 4th century, the so-called Pistis Sophia or Askew Codex, and the Bruce Codex, respectively in the British Museum and Bodleian Libraries. According to Schmidt and Harnack, they are translations dating from the 3rd century and belong to an ascetic or encratitic sect of the Gnostics which arose in Egypt itself. There is abundance of apocryphal works, of apocalypses, of patristic writings from Athanasius to the council of Chalcedon, homilies, lives of saints and anecdotes of holy men, acts of martyrs extending from the persecution of Diocletian to that of the Persians in the 7th century, and lives of later ascetics and martyrs reaching down to the 14th century. Unless some of the Egyptian acta sanctorum et martyrum should prove to have been originally written in Coptic, almost the only original works in that language of any importance are the numerous sermons and letters of Shenoute, a monk of Atrēpe near Akhmīm, written in the Sahidic dialect in the 4th century. After the Arab conquest, as a defence to the threatened church, language and nationality, versifications of the Proverbs, of Solomon’s Song and of various legends were composed, with other religious songs. They are mostly antiphonal, a number of stresses in a line marking the rhythm. There is no musical notation in the MSS., but traditional church tunes are generally referred to or prescribed for the songs. Of secular literature strangely little existed or at least has survived: only a few magical texts, fragments of a medical treatise, of the story of Alexander, and of a story of the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, are known, apart from numerous legal and business documents.

Coptic was occasionally employed for literary purposes as late as the 14th century, but from the 10th century onward the Copts wrote mostly in Arabic. Severus of Eshmunain (c. 950), who wrote a history of the patriarchs of Alexandria, was one of the first to employ Arabic; Cyril ibn Laklak and others in the 13th and 14th centuries translated much of the older literature from Coptic into Arabic and Ethiopic for the use of the Egyptian and Abyssinian churches. From this period also date the native Coptic grammars and lexicons of Ibn ’Assal and others. At the present time literature among the Copts is represented by Claudius Labīb, an enthusiast for the revival of the Coptic tongue, Marcus Simaika, a leader of the progressive movement, and others.

(F. Ll. G.)

The Coptic Church.—Up to the 5th century the church of Alexandria played a part in the Christian world scarcely second to that of Rome: the names of Origen, Athanasius and Cyril bear witness to her greatness. But in the time of the patriarch Dioscorus the church, always fond of speculation, was rent asunder by the controversy concerning the single or twofold nature of our Lord, as stated by Eutyches. The Eutychian doctrine, approved by the council of Ephesus, was condemned by that of Chalcedon in 451. But to this decision, though given by 636 bishops, the Copts refused assent—a refusal which profoundly affected both the religious and the political history of their country. From that moment they were treated as heretics. The emperor appointed a new bishop of Alexandria, whose adherents the Copts styled Melkites or Imperialists, while the Copts are distinguished as Monophysites and Jacobites. The court party and the native party each maintained its own line of patriarchs, and each treated the other with bitter hostility. For nearly two centuries strife and persecution continued. The well-meant ecthesis of Heraclius was a failure and was followed by repression, till in 640 the Copts were released from the Roman dominion by the Saracen invasion. But it was only after prolonged resistance to the Arabs that the Copts accepted a change of masters, which gave them for a while religious freedom. The orthodox or Melkite party, consisting mostly of Byzantine Greeks, was swept away, and the double succession of patriarchs practically ceased. True, even now there is an orthodox patriarch of Alexandria living in Cairo, but he has only a few Greeks for followers, and scarcely a nominal succession has been maintained. But the Coptic succession has been continuous and real.

The distinctive Monophysite doctrine of the Copts is not easy to state intelligibly, and yet they cling to it with something of the tenacity which has marked their whole history. They repudiate the heresy of Eutyches as strongly Doctrine. as that of Nestorius, and claim to stand between the two doctrines teaching that Christ was one person with one nature which was made up by the indissoluble union of a divine and a human nature, but that notwithstanding this absolute union the two natures remained after union distinct, unconfounded and uncommingled, separate though inseparable. The creed thus savours of paradox, not to say contradiction. It is set forth in the Liturgy and recited at every Coptic mass in the following words:—“I believe that this is the life-giving flesh which thine only Son took from the ... Holy Mary. He united it with His Divinity without mingling and without confusion and without alteration.... I believe that His Divinity was not separated from His Manhood for one moment or for the twinkling of an eye.” On all other points of dogma, including the single procession of the Holy Ghost, the Copts agree with the Greek Church.

“The most holy pope and patriarch of the great city of Alexandria and of all the land of Egypt, of Jerusalem the holy city, of Nubia, Abyssinia and Pentapolis, and all the preaching of St Mark,” as he is still called, had originally Hierarchy. jurisdiction over all the places named. Jurisdiction over Abyssinia remains, but from Nubia and Pentapolis Christianity has disappeared. The ancient rule is that no bishop is eligible for the patriarchate. The requirement of a period of desert life has so far prevailed that no one but a monk from one of the desert monasteries is now qualified. This rule, harmless perhaps when the monasteries were the great schools of learning and devotion, now puts a premium on ignorance, and is disastrous to the church; more particularly as even bishops must be chosen from the monks. The patriarch is elected by an assembly of bishops and elders. The candidate is brought in chains from the desert, and, if only in monk’s orders, is passed through the higher grades except that of bishop. The patriarch’s seat was transferred some time after the Arab conquest from Alexandria to the fortress town of Babylon (Old Cairo), and in modern times it was shifted to Cairo proper. The other orders and offices in the church are metropolitan, bishop, chief priest, priest, archdeacon, deacon, reader and monk. The number of bishoprics in ancient times was very large—Athanasius says nearly 100. At present there remain ten in Egypt, one at Khartum and three in Abyssinia.

The numerous remaining churches in Egypt but faintly represent the vast number standing in ancient times. Rufinus says that he found 10,000 monks in the one region of Arsinoe. Later, in 616, the Persians are described Buildings. as destroying 600 monasteries near Alexandria. Abū Sālih (12th century) gives a list of churches surviving in his day, and their number is astonishing. The earliest were cut out of rocks and caverns. In the days of Constantine and Justinian basilicas of great splendour were built, such as the church of St Mark at Alexandria and the Red Monastery in Upper Egypt. This type of architecture permanently influenced Coptic builders, but there prevailed also a type, probably native in origin, though possessing Byzantine features, such as the domed roofing. There is no church now standing which bears any trace of the fine glass mosaics which once adorned the basilicas, nor is there any example of a well-defined cruciform ground-plan. But the use of the dome by Coptic architects is almost universal, and nearly every church has at least three domes overshadowing the three altars. The domes are sometimes lighted by small windows; but the walls are windowless, and the churches consequently gloomy. Among the most interesting churches are those of Old Cairo, those in the Wadi Natron, and the Red and White Monasteries (Der el-Abiad and Der el-Ahmar) near Suhag in Upper Egypt.

Every church has three altars at the eastern end in three contiguous chapels. The central division is called the haikal or sanctuary, which is always divided from the choir by a fixed partition or screen with a small arched Church fittings. doorway closed by double doors. This resembles the Greek iconostasis, the screen on which the “icons” or sacred pictures are placed. Haikal screen and choir screen are often sumptuously carved and inlaid. A marble basin for the mandatum in the nave, and an epiphany tank at the west are common features. The altar is usually built of brick or stone, hollow within, and having an opening to the interior. A wooden altar-slab covered with crosses, &c., lies in a rectangular depression on the surface, and it is used in case of need as a portable altar. Chalice and paten, ewer and basin, crewet and chrismatory, are found as in the Western churches. The aster consists of two crossed half-hoops of silver and is used to place over the wafer. The flabellum is used, though now rarely made of precious metal. Some examples of silver-cased textus now remaining are very fine. Every church possesses thuribles—the use of incense being universal and frequent—and diadems for the marriage service. The use of church bells is forbidden by the Moslems, except in the desert, and church music consists merely of cymbals and triangles which accompany the chanting.

The sacramental wine is usually made from raisins, but the juice must be fermented. Churches even in Cairo have a press for crushing the raisins. The eucharistic bread is baked in an oven built near the sanctuary. The wafer is Rites and ceremonies. a small loaf about 3 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick, stamped with the trisagion and with crosses. Communion must be received fasting. Confession is required, but has somewhat fallen into disuse. Laymen receive in both kinds. The wafer being broken into the chalice, crumbs or “pearls” are taken out in a spoon and so administered, as in the Greek rite. Reservation is uncanonical. Renaudot states that it was permitted in cases of great extremity, when the host remained upon the altar with lamps burning and a priest watching, but it is not now practised, and there is no evidence of any such vessel as a pyx in Coptic ritual. Small benedictional crosses belong to each altar, and processional crosses are common. The crucifix is unknown, for while paintings and frescoes abound, graven images are absolutely forbidden. The liturgy was read exclusively in the extinct Coptic language till the end of the 19th century, but parts are now read in Arabic, while the lessons have long been read in Arabic as well as in Coptic. The services are still excessively long, that of Good Friday lasting eleven hours; but benches are now provided in the newer churches. Seven sacraments are recognized—baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance, orders, matrimony, and unction of the sick. The chief fasts are those of Advent, of Nineveh, of Heraclius, Lent and Pentecost. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem is a duty and sometimes a penance.

The Coptic ritual deserves much fuller study than it has received. Since the 7th century the church has been so isolated as to be little influenced by changes affecting other communions. Consequently it remains in many respects the most ancient monument of primitive rites and ceremonies in Christendom. But centuries of subjection to Moslem rule have much weakened it. For the liturgical dress see Vestments; Chasuble, &c.

The British occupation of Egypt profoundly modified Coptic religious life. Before it the Copts lived in their own semi-fortified quarters in Cairo or Old Cairo or in country or desert Present state of the church. Dairs (Ders). Walls and gates were now thrown down or disused: the Copts began to mix and live freely among the Moslems, their children to frequent the same schools, and the people to abandon their distinctively Christian dress, names, customs and even religion. Freedom and prosperity threatened to injure the Church more than centuries of persecution. Many of the younger generation of Copts began openly to boast their indifference and even scepticism: in the large towns churches came to be too often frequented only by the old or the uneducated, confession and fasts fell into neglect and the number of communicants diminished; while the facility of divorce granted by Islam occasioned many perversions from among the Copts to that religion. On the other hand the necessity of resistance to these tendencies and of reform from within was strongly realized. Unfortunately, the institution of a lay council of eminent churchmen, which has been formed for the patriarch and for every bishop in his own diocese, has led to prolonged struggles and on one occasion to a serious crisis, in which the patriarch and the metropolitan of Alexandria were for a while banished to the desert. A principal object of these lay councils is to control the financial and legal powers vested in patriarch and bishops—powers which have often been greatly abused. Other objects are (1) to provide Christian religious education in all Coptic schools and to raise these schools to a high standard in secular matters; (2) to promote the education of women; (3) to apply church revenues to the maintenance of churches and schools and to the better payment of the clergy, who are now often compelled to live on charity; (4) to ensure prompt administration of justice in ecclesiastical causes such as divorce, inheritance, &c.; and (5) to establish colleges for the efficient training of the clergy. Educated Copts remember the time when the church of Alexandria was as famous for learning as for zeal. They desire also to resist the serious encroachments of Roman Catholic, American Presbyterian, and other foreign missions upon their ancient faith.

(A. J. B.)

Authorities.—(1) History and Religion: Johann Michael Wansleben (Vansleb), a Dominican and learned orientalist (1635-1679), Hist. de l’église d’Alexandrie (Paris, 1677), written at Cairo in 1672 and 1673 mainly from original native sources, and Nouvelle Relation ... d’un voyage fait en Égypte, &c. (Paris, 1677 and 1698, Eng. trans., London, 1678); Eusèbe Renaudot the younger (1646-1720), Historia Patriarcharum Alexandrinorum (Paris, 1713); Abū Dakn (Josephus Abudacnus), Historia Jacobitarum (Oxford, 1675, Eng. trans. by Sir E. Sadleir, London, 1693); S. C. Malan, Original Documents of the Coptic Church (London, 1874); Denzinger, Ritus Orientalium (Würzburg, 1863); Hon. Robert Curzon, Visits to Monasteries in the Levant (London, 1849); J. M. Neale, Hist. of the Patriarchate of Alexandria (2 vols., ib., 1847), in the Hist. of the Holy Eastern Church, coloured by the writer’s Anglo-Catholic point of view; A. J. Butler, Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt (Oxford, 1884); B. T. A. Evetts and Butler, Churches and Monasteries of Egypt, by Abū Sāleh (Oxford, 1895); E. Amélineau, Monuments pour servir à l’histoire de l’Égypte chrétienne aux IVe et Ve siècles, Coptic and Arabic documents published and translated for the first time, in Mém. de la mission archéolog. franç. au Caire, t. iv. (Paris, 1888), and Monuments ... au IVe siècle in the Annales du musée Guimet, t. xvii. (Paris, 1889); P. Rohrbach, Die alexandrinischen Patriarchen (Berlin, 1891); Jullien, L’Égypte: souvenirs bibliques et chrétiens (Lille, 1891); Macaire, Histoire de l’église d’Alexandrie (Cairo, 1894); Porphyrius, The Christian East: Alexandrian Patriarchate (St Petersburg, 1898; in Russian); Strzygowski, Orient oder Rom? (Leipzig, 1901); De Bock, Matériaux pour servir à l’archéologie de l’Égypte chrétienne (St Petersburg, 1901); Kitab al Hulājī al Muķaddas (Cairo, 1902); A. Gayet, “Les Monuments coptes du musée de Boulaq,” in the Mém. miss. archéolog. franç. au Caire, t. iii. (Paris, 1889); id., L’Art copte (Paris, 1902); Horner, The Statutes of the Apostles (London, 1904); Egypt Exploration Fund Reports, section “Christian Egypt”; W. E. Crum, article “Koptische Kirche” in Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, 3. Aufl.; J. M. Fuller’s article “Coptic Church” in Smith’s Dictionary of Biography; A. J. Butler, The Arab Conquest of Egypt (Oxford, 1902); J. Leipoldt, Schenute von Atripe und die Entstehung des national-ägyptischen Christentums (Leipzig, 1903), Die Entstehung der koptischen Kirche (a valuable essay printed as the introduction to R. Haupt’s Katalog 5, Halle, 1905); B. T. A. Evetts, “The Patriarchal History of Severus” in Graffin’s Patrologia orientalis (Paris); J. Milne, A History of Egypt under Roman Rule (1898).

Literature.—See Crum’s article above referred to, his Catalogue of Coptic MSS. in the British Museum, and his annual reviews in the Archaeological Report of the Egypt Exploration Fund; J. Leipoldt in Geschichte der christlichen Literaturen des Orients (Leipzig, 1907); H. Junker, Koptische Poesie des zehnten Jahrhunderts, 1. Teil (Berlin, 1908); Archdeacon Dowling, The Egyptian Church (London, 1909).

Modern People.—E. W. Lane’s description of the Copts in his Modern Egyptians is interesting, but founded on imperfect information, and, moreover, coloured by prejudices in favour of the Moslems whom he studied with so much sympathy. See Klunzinger, Upper Egypt, pp. 61 et sqq.; also the last chapter of The Story of the Church of Egypt, by Mrs E. L. Butcher (1897), on the social life and customs.

COPYHOLD, in English law, an ancient form of land tenure, legally defined as a “holding at the will of the lord according to the custom of the manor.” Though nowadays of diminishing practical importance, its incidents are historically interesting. Its origin is to be found in the occupation by villani, or non-freemen, of portions of land belonging to the manor of a feudal lord. In the time of the Domesday survey the manor was in part granted to free tenants, in part reserved by the lord himself for his own uses. The estate of the free tenants is the freehold estate of English law; as tenants of the same manor they assembled together in manorial court or court baron, of which they were the judges. The portion of the manor reserved for the lord (the demesne, or domain) was cultivated by labourers who were bound to the land (adscripti glebae). They could not leave the manor, and their service was obligatory. These villani, however, were allowed by the lord to cultivate portions of land for their own use. It was a mere occupation at the pleasure of the lord, but in course of time it grew into an occupation by right, recognized first of all by custom and afterwards by law. This kind of tenure is called by the lawyers villenagium, and it probably marks a great advance in the general recognition of the right when the name is applied to lands held on the same conditions not by villeins but by free men. The tenants in villenage were not, like the freeholders, members of the court baron, but they appear to have attended in a humbler capacity, and to have solicited the succession to the land occupied by a deceased father, or the admission of a new tenant who had purchased the goodwill, as it might be called, of the holding, paying for such favours certain customary fines or dues. In relation to the tenants in villenage, the court baron was called the customary court. The records of the court constituted the title of the villein tenant, held by copy of the court roll (whence the term “copyhold”); and the customs of the manor therein recorded formed the real property law applicable to his case.

Copyhold had long been established in practice before it was formally recognized by the law. At first it was in fact, as it is now in the fictitious theory of the law, a tenancy at will, for which none of the legal remedies of a freeholder were available. In the reign of Edward IV., however, it was held that a tenant in villenage had an action of trespass against the lord. In this way a species of tenant-right, depending on and strongly supported by popular opinion, was changed into a legal right. But it retained many incidents characteristic of its historical origin. The life of copyhold assurance, it is said, is custom. Copyhold is necessarily parcel of a manor, and the freehold is said to be in the lord of the manor. The court roll of the manor is the evidence of title and the record of the special laws as to fines, quit rents, heriots, &c., prevailing in the manor. When copyhold land is conveyed from one person to another, it is surrendered by the owner to the lord, who by his payment of the customary fine makes a new grant of it to the purchaser. The lord must admit the vendor’s nominee, but the form of the conveyance is still that of surrender and re-grant. The lord, as legal owner of the fee-simple of the lands, has a right to all the mines and minerals and to all the growing timber, although the tenant may have planted it himself. Hence it appears that the existence of copyhold tenures may sometimes be traced by the total absence of timber from such lands, while on freehold lands it grows in abundance. Hence also the popular saying that the “oak grows not except on free land.” The copyholder must not commit waste either by cutting down timber, &c., or by neglecting to repair buildings. In such respects the law treats him as a mere lessee,—the real owner being supposed to be the lord. On the other hand, the lord may not enter the land to cut his own timber or open his mines. The limitations of estates usual in respect of other lands, as found in copyhold, become subject of course to the operations of its peculiar conditions as to the relation of lord and tenant. An estate for life, or pour autre vie (i.e. for another’s life), an estate entail, or in fee-simple, may be carved out of copyhold.

A species of tenure resembling copyhold is what is known as customary freehold. The land is held by copy of court-roll, but not by will of the lord. The question has been raised whether the freehold of such lands is in the lord of the manor or in the tenant, and the courts of law have decided in favour of the former. In some instances copyhold for lives alone is recognized, and in such cases the lord of the manor may ultimately, when all the lives have dropped, get back the land into his own hands.

The feudal obligations attaching to copyhold tenure have been found to cause much inconvenience to the tenants, while they are of no great value to the lord. One of the most vexatious of these is the heriot, under which name the lord is entitled to seize the tenant’s best beast or other chattel in the event of the tenant’s death. The custom dates from the time when all the copyholder’s property, including the copyholder himself, belonged to the lord, and is supposed to have been fixed by way of analogy to the custom which gave a military tenant’s habiliments to his lord in order to equip his successor. Instances have occurred of articles of great value being seized as heriots for the copyhold tenements of their owners. A race horse worth £2000 or £3000 was thus seized. The fine payable on the admission of a new tenant, whether by alienation or succession, is to a certain extent arbitrary, but the courts long ago laid down the rule that it must be reasonable, and anything beyond two years’ improved value of the lands they disallowed.

The inconvenience caused by these feudal incidents of the tenure led to a series of statutes, having for their object the conversion of copyhold into freehold. The first Copyhold Act, that of 1841, was consolidated by the Copyhold Act 1894. Owing to the incidents attaching to land “holden by copy of court roll according to the custom of the manor” in the shape of fines and heriots, the inability to grant a lease for a term exceeding a year, and to the peculiar rules as to descent, waste, dower, curtesy, alienation, and other matters, varying often from manor to manor and widely differing from the uniform law applicable to land in general, enfranchisement, or the conversion of land held by copyhold tenure into freehold, is often desired. This could and may still be effected at common law, but only by agreement on the part of both the lord and the tenant. Moreover, it was subject to other disadvantages. The cost fell on the tenant, and the land when enfranchised was subject to the encumbrances attaching to the manor, and so an investigation into the lord’s title was necessary. In 1841 an act was passed to provide a statutory method of enfranchisement, removing some of the barriers existing at common law; but the machinery created was only available where both lord and tenant were in agreement. The Copyhold Act 1852 went further, and for the first time introduced the principle of compulsory enfranchisement on the part of either party. By the Copyhold Act 1894, which now governs statutory enfranchisement, the former Copyhold Acts 1841-1887, were repealed, and the law was consolidated and improved. Enfranchisement is now effected under this act, though in certain cases it is also to be obtained under special acts, such as the Land Clauses Consolidation Act 1848; and the old common law method with all its disadvantages is still open. The Copyhold Act 1894 deals both with compulsory and with voluntary enfranchisement. In either case the sanction of the Board of Agriculture must be obtained; and powers are bestowed on it to decide questions arising on enfranchisement, with an appeal to the High Court. The actual enfranchisement, where it is compelled by one of the parties, is effected by an award made by the board; in the case of a voluntary enfranchisement it is completed by deed. Under the act it is open to both lord and tenant to compel enfranchisement, though the expenses are to be borne by the party requiring it. The compensation to the lord, in the absence of an agreement, is ascertained under the direction of the board on a valuation made by a valuer or valuers appointed by the lord and tenant; and may be paid either in a gross sum or by way of an annual rent charge issuing out of the land enfranchised, and equivalent to interest at the rate of 4% on the amount fixed upon as compensation. This rent charge is redeemable on six months’ notice at twenty-five times its annual amount. The tenant, even if he is the compelling party, may elect either method; but the lord has not the same option, and where the enfranchisement is at his instance, unless there is either an agreement to the contrary or a notice on the part of the tenant to exercise his option, the compensation is a rent charge. Power is conferred on the lord to purchase the tenant’s interest where a change in the condition of the land by enfranchisement would prejudice his mansion house, park or gardens; while on the other hand, in the interest of the public or the other tenants, the board is authorized to continue conditions of user for their benefit.

So far the provisions relating to compulsory enfranchisement have been dealt with; but even in the case of a voluntary agreement the lord and tenant are only entitled to accept enfranchisement with the consent of the Board of Agriculture. The consideration in addition to a gross sum or a rent charge may consist of a conveyance of land, or of a right to mines or minerals, or of a right to waste in lands belonging to the manor, or partly in one way and partly in another. The effect of enfranchisement, whether it be voluntary or compulsory, is that the land becomes of freehold tenure subject to the same laws relating to descent, dower and curtesy as are applicable to freeholds, and so freed from Borough English, Gavelkind (save in Kent), and other customary modes of descent, and from any custom relating to dower or free-bench or tenancy by curtesy. Nevertheless, the lord is entitled to escheat in the event of failure of heirs, just as if the land had not been enfranchised. The land is held under the same title as that under which it was held at the date at which the enfranchisement takes effect; but it is not subject to any estate right, charge, or interest affecting the manor. Every mortgage of copyhold estate in the land enfranchised becomes a mortgage of the freehold, though subject to the priority of the rent charge paid in compensation under the act. All rights and interests of any person in the land and all leases remain binding in the same manner. On the other hand the tenant’s rights of common still continue attached to the freehold; and, without express consent in writing of the lord or tenant respectively, the right of either in mines or minerals shall not be affected by the change. No creation of new copyholds by granting land out of the waste is permissible, save with the consent of the Board of Agriculture; and the act enacts that a valid admittance of a new copyholder may be made without holding a court.

Under the earlier acts, machinery to free the land from the burden of the old rents, fines and heriots was set up, commuting them into a rent charge or a fine. Commutation, however, is never compulsory, and differs from enfranchisement in that, whereas by enfranchisement the land in question is converted into freehold, by commutation it still continued parcel of the manor, though subject to a rent charge or a fine, as might have been agreed. The ordinary laws of descent, dower, and curtesy were, however, substituted for the customs in relation to these matters incidental to the land in question before commutation, and the timber became the tenant’s.

Authorities.—C. I. Elton, Law of Copyholds (1898); C. Watkins, On Copyholds (1825); Scriven on Copyholds, ed. A. Brown (1896); A. Brown, Copyhold Enfranchisement Acts (1895).

COPYING MACHINES. Appliances of various kinds have been devised for producing copies of writings made by the pen or pencil. A simple method commonly adopted when only a single copy is required is to write the original with specially prepared copying ink (formed by adding some thickening substance like sugar or gum to ordinary ink), to place upon it a damped sheet of thin absorbent paper, and to press the two together in some way, as in a copying press. The resulting impression, being reversed, must be read from the back of the absorbent paper, which is thin enough to be transparent. Another process, by which a considerable number of copies can be made simultaneously, consists in interleaving a number of sheets of thin white paper with sheets of paper prepared with lampblack (“carbon paper”) and writing on the top sheet with a “style” or other sharp-pointed instrument. The hectograph may be taken as typical of manifolding processes analogous to lithography. In it the writing is in first instance done with aniline ink, and then a transfer is made to a plate of a gelatinous composition, from which a series of duplicates can be taken off. Another class of methods involves the preparation of what are essentially stencils. In the cyclostyle, paper of a special kind is stretched over a smooth metal plate, and the writing instrument consists of a holder having at the end a small wheel provided with a serrated edge on its periphery, which perforates the paper with lines of minute cuts and thus forms a stencil. When ink is passed over this stencil with a roller it goes through the perforations and leaves an impression on a piece of paper placed underneath. In the trypograph a similar result is attained by using a simple style for writing, but stretching the paper over a metal plate having its surface covered with fine sharp corrugations which pierce the paper as the style is moved over them. In the Edison electric pen the stencil is formed by the aid of a style containing a fine needle, which is rapidly moved up and down by a small electric motor mounted at the top of the pen, and thus a series of minute holes is punctured in the paper by the act of writing. For copying plans and drawings, engineers, architects, &c., use a “blue print” process which depends on the action of light on certain salts of iron (see Sun-Copying and Photography).

COPYRIGHT, in law, the right, belonging exclusively to the author or his assignees, of multiplying for sale copies of an original work or composition, in literature or art. As a recognized form of property it is, compared with others, of recent origin, being in fact, in the use of literary works, mainly the result of the facility for multiplying copies created by the discovery of printing. It is with copyright in literary compositions that we are here primarily concerned, as it was established first, the analogous right as regards works of plastic art, &c., following in its train.

1. Whether copyright was recognized at all by the common law of England was long a much debated legal question. Blackstone thinks that “this species of property, being grounded on labour and invention, is more properly reducible to the head of occupancy than any other, since the right of occupancy itself is supposed by Mr Locke and many others to be founded on the personal labour of the occupant.” But he speaks doubtfully of its existence—merely mentioning the opposing views, “that on the one hand it hath been thought no other man can have a right to exhibit the author’s work without his consent, and that it is urged on the other hand that the right is of too subtle and unsubstantial a nature to become the subject of property at the common law, and only capable of being guarded by positive statutes and special provisions of the magistrate.” He notices that the Roman law adjudged that if one man wrote anything on the paper or parchment of another, the writing should belong to the owner of the blank materials, but as to any other property in the works of the understanding the law is silent, and he adds that “neither with us in England hath there been (till very lately) any final determination upon the rights of authors at the common law.” The common law undoubtedly gives a right to restrain the publication of unpublished compositions; but when a work is once published, its protection depends on the statutes regulating copyright. The leading case on the subject of unpublished works is Prince Albert v. Strange (1849), 2 De G. & Sm. 652. Copies of etchings by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, which had been lithographed for private circulation, fell into the hands of the defendant, a London publisher, who proposed to exhibit them, and issued a catalogue entitled A Descriptive Catalogue of the Royal Victoria and Albert Gallery of Etchings. The court of chancery restrained the publication of the catalogue, holding that property in mechanical works, or works of art, does certainly subsist, and is invaded, before publication, not only by copying but by description or catalogue. This protection includes news (Exchange Telegraph Co. v. Central News, 1897).

As a matter of principle, the nature of copyright itself, and the reasons why it should be recognized in law, have, as already stated, been the subject of bitter dispute. It was attacked as constituting a monopoly, and it has been Nature of right. argued that copyright should be looked upon as a doubtful exception to the general law regulating trade, and should be strictly limited in point of duration. On the other hand, it is claimed that copyright, being in the nature of personal property, should be perpetual. A man’s own work, in this view, is as much his as his house or his money, and should be protected by the state. Historically, and in legal definition, there would appear to be no doubt that copyright, as regulated by statute, is strictly a monopoly. The parliamentary protection of works of art for the period of fourteen years by an act of 1709 and later statutes appears, as Blackstone points out, to have been suggested by the exception in the Statute of Monopolies 1623. The object of that statute was to suppress the royal grants of exclusive right to trade in certain articles, and to reassert in relation to all such monopolies the common law of the land. Certain exceptions were made on grounds of public policy, and among others it was allowed that a royal patent of privilege might be granted for fourteen years “to any inventor of a new manufacture for the sole working or making of the same.” Copyright, like patent right, would be covered by the legal definition of a monopoly. It is a mere right to prevent other people from manufacturing certain articles. But objections to monopolies in general do not apply to this particular class of cases, in which the author of a new work in literature or art has the right of preventing others from manufacturing copies thereof and selling them to the public. The rights of persons licensed to sell spirits, to hold theatrical exhibitions, &c., are also of the nature of monopolies, and may be defended on special grounds of public policy. The monopoly of authors and inventors rests on the general sentiment underlying all civilized law, that a man should be protected in the enjoyment of the fruits of his own labour.

Literary Copyright

2. United Kingdom.—On the invention of printing (see Press Laws) the crown, or other sovereign powers, granted patents or licences with the object of restricting the right of multiplying copies of literary works, and this supervision Historical account. of publication still has certain historical results. A special kind of what amounts to perpetual copyright in various publications has for various reasons been recognized by the laws (1) in the crown, and (2) in the universities and colleges. The various copyright acts, referred to below, except from their provisions the copyrights vested in the two English and the four Scottish universities, Trinity College, Dublin, and the colleges of Eton, Westminster and Winchester. Crown copyrights are saved by the general principle which exempts crown rights from the operation of statutes unless they are expressly mentioned. Among the books in which the crown has claimed copyright are the English translation of the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, statutes, orders of privy council, proclamations, almanacs, Lilly’s Latin Grammar, year books and law reports. The copyright in the Bible is rested by some on the king’s position as head of the church; Lord Lyndhurst rested it on his duties as the chief executive officer of the state charged with the publication of authorized manuals of religion. The right of printing the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer is vested in the king’s printer and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. These copyrights do not extend to prohibit independent translations from the original. The obsolete copyright of the crown in Lilly’s Latin Grammar was founded on the fact of its having been drawn up at the king’s expense. The universities have a joint right (with the crown’s patentees) of printing acts of parliament. Law reports were decided to be the property of the crown in the reign of Charles II.; by act of parliament they were forbidden to be published without licence from the chancellor and the chiefs of the three courts, and this form of licence remained in use after the act had expired. University and college copyrights were made perpetual by an act of George III., but only on condition of the books being printed at their printing presses and for their own benefit.

3. The first definite statute, or Copyright Act, in England was passed in 1709. The preamble states that printers, booksellers and other persons were frequently in the habit of printing, reprinting, and publishing “books and other writings without the consent of the authors or proprietors of such books and writings, to their very great detriment, and too often to the ruin of them and their families.” “For preventing, therefore, such practices for the future, and for the encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books, it is enacted that the author of any book or books already printed, who hath not transferred to any other the copy or copies of such book or books in order to print or reprint the same, shall have the sole right and liberty of printing such book or books for the term of one-and-twenty years, and that the author of any book or books already composed, and not printed and published, or that shall hereafter be composed, and his assignee, or assignees, shall have the sole liberty of printing and reprinting such book or books for the term of fourteen years, to commence from the day of first publishing the same, and no longer.” The penalty for offences against the act was declared to be the forfeiture of the illicit copies to the true proprietor, and the fine of one penny per sheet, half to the crown, and half to any person suing for the same. “After the expiration of the said term of fourteen years the sole right of printing or disposing of copies shall return to the authors thereof, if they are then living, or their representatives, for another term of fourteen years.” To secure the benefit of the act registration at Stationers’ Hall was necessary. In section 4 was contained the provision that if any person thought the price of a book “too high and unreasonable,” he might complain to the archbishop of Canterbury, the lord chancellor, the bishop of London, the chiefs of the three courts at Westminster, and the vice-chancellors of the two universities in England, and to the lord president, lord justice general, lord chief baron of the exchequer, and the rector of the college of Edinburgh in Scotland, who might fix a reasonable price. Nine copies of each book were to be provided for the royal library, the libraries of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the four Scottish universites, Sion College, and the faculty of advocates at Edinburgh.

It was believed for a long time that this statute had not interfered with the rights of authors at common law. Ownership of literary property at common law appears indeed to have been recognized in some earlier statutes. The Licensing Act 1662 prohibited the printing of any work without the consent of the owner on pain of forfeiture, &c. This act expired in 1679, and attempts to renew it were unsuccessful. The records of the Stationers’ Company show that the purchase and sale of copyrights had become an established usage, and the loss of the protection, incidentally afforded by the Licensing Act, was felt as a serious grievance, which ultimately led to the statute of 1709. That statute, as the judges in Millar v. Taylor (1769, 4 Burr. 2303) pointed out, speaks of the ownership of literary property as a known thing. Many cases are recorded in which the courts protected copyrights not falling within the periods laid down by the act. Thus in 1735 the master of the rolls restrained the printing of an edition of the Whole Duty of Man, published in 1657. In 1739 an injunction was granted by Lord Hardwicke against the publication of Paradise Lost, at the instance of persons claiming under an assignment from Milton in 1667. In the case of Millar v. Taylor the plaintiff, who had purchased the copyright of Thomson’s Seasons in 1729, claimed damages for an unlicensed publication thereof by the defendant in 1763. The jury found that before the statute it was usual to purchase from authors the perpetual copyright of their works. Three judges, among whom was Lord Mansfield, decided in favour of the common law right; one was of the contrary opinion. The majority thought that the act of 1709 was not intended to destroy copyright at common law, but merely to protect it more efficiently during the limited periods. Millar v. Taylor, however, was speedily overruled by the case of Donaldson v. Beckett in the House of Lords in 1774. The judges were called upon to state their opinions. A majority (seven to four) were of opinion that the author and his assigns had at common law the sole right of publication in perpetuity. A majority (six to five) were of opinion that this right had been taken away by the statute of 1709, and a term of years substituted for the perpetuity. The decision appears to have taken the trade by surprise. Many booksellers had purchased copyrights not protected by the statute, and they now petitioned parliament to be relieved from the consequences of the decision in Donaldson v. Beckett. A bill for this purpose actually passed the House of Commons, but Lord Camden’s influence succeeded in defeating it in the House of Lords. The result is that from that time on ordinary copyright has been recognized except in so far as it is sanctioned by statute. The university copyrights were, however, protected in perpetuity by an act passed in 1775.

By an act of 1801 the penalty for infringement of copyright was increased to threepence per sheet, in addition to the forfeiture of the book. The proprietor was to have an action on the case against any person in the United Kingdom, or British dominions in Europe, who should print, reprint, or import without the consent of the proprietor, first had in writing, signed in the presence of two or more credible witnesses, any book or books, or who knowing them to be printed, &c., without the proprietor’s consent should sell, publish, or expose them for sale; the proprietor to have his damages as assessed by the jury, and double costs of suit. A second period of fourteen years was confirmed to the author, should he still be alive at the end of the first. Further, it was forbidden to import into the United Kingdom for sale books first composed, written, or printed and published within the United Kingdom, and reprinted elsewhere. Another change was made by the act of 1814, which in substitution for the two periods of fourteen years gave to the author and his assignees copyright for the full term of twenty-eight years from the date of the first publication, “and also, if the author be living at the end of that period, for the residue of his natural life.”

4. The Copyright Act of 1842 repealed the previous acts on the same subject, and is the basis of the existing law. Its preamble stated its object to be to encourage the production of “literary matter of lasting benefit to the world.” The Act of 1842. principal clause is the following (§ 3): “That the copyright in every book which shall after the passing of this act be published in the lifetime of its author shall endure for the natural life of such author, and for the further term of seven years, commencing at the time of his death, and shall be the property of such author and his assignees; provided always that if the said term of seven years shall expire before the end of forty-two years from the first publication of such book the copyright shall in that case endure for such period of forty-two years; and that the copyright of every book which shall be published after the death of its author shall endure for the term of forty-two years from the first publication thereof, and shall be the property of the proprietor of the author’s manuscript from which such book shall be first published and his assigns.” The benefit of the enlarged period was extended to subsisting copyrights, unless they were the property of an assignee who had acquired them by purchase, in which case the period of copyright would be extended only if the author or his personal representative agreed with the proprietor to accept the benefit of the act. By section 5 the judicial committee of the privy council may license the republication of books which the proprietor of the copyright thereof refuses to publish after the death of the author. The sixth section provides for the delivery within certain times of copies of all books published after the passing of the act, and of all subsequent editions thereof, at the British Museum. And a copy of every book and its subsequent editions must be sent on demand to the following libraries: the Bodleian at Oxford, the public library at Cambridge, the library of the faculty of advocates in Edinburgh, and that of Trinity College, Dublin. Other libraries (the libraries of the four Scottish Universities, King’s Inns, Dublin, and Sion College) entitled to this privilege under the earlier acts had been deprived thereof by an act passed in 1836, and grants from the treasury, calculated on the annual average value of the books they had received, were ordered to be paid to them as compensation. A book of registry is ordered to be kept at Stationers’ Hall for the registration of copyrights, to be open to inspection on payment of one shilling for every entry which shall be searched for or inspected. And the officer of Stationers’ Hall shall give a certified copy of any entry when required, on payment of five shillings; and such certified copies shall be received in evidence in the courts as prima facie proof of proprietorship or assignment of copyright or licence as therein expressed, and, in the case of dramatic or musical pieces, of the right of representation or performance. False entries shall be punished as misdemeanours. The entry is to record the title of the book, the time of its publication, and the name and place of abode of the publisher and proprietor of copyright. Without making such entry no proprietor can bring an action for infringement of his copyright, but the entry is not otherwise to affect the copyright itself. Any person deeming himself aggrieved by an entry in the registry may complain to one of the superior courts, which will order it to be expunged or varied if necessary. A proprietor may bring an action on the case for infringement of his copyright, and the defendant in such an action must give notice of the objections to the plaintiff’s title on which he means to rely. No person except the proprietor of the copyright is allowed to import into the British dominions for sale or hire any book first composed or written or printed and published in the United Kingdom, and reprinted elsewhere, under penalty of forfeiture and a fine of £10. The proprietor of any encyclopaedia, review, magazine, periodical work, or work published in a series of books or parts, who shall have employed any person to compose the same, or any volumes, parts, essays, articles, or portions thereof, for publication on the terms that the copyright therein shall belong to such proprietor, shall enjoy the term of copyright granted by the act.1 But the proprietor may not publish separately any article or review without the author’s consent, nor may the author unless he has reserved the right of separate publication. Where neither party has reserved the right they may publish by agreement, but the author at the end of twenty-eight years may publish separately. Proprietors of periodical works shall be entitled to all the benefits of registration under the act, on entering in the registry the title, the date of first publication of the first volume or part, and the names of proprietor and publisher.

The interpretation clause of the act defines a book to be every volume, part, or division of a volume, pamphlet, sheet of letter-press, sheet of music, map, chart, or plan separately published.

5. During the last quarter of the 19th century the question of copyright became continually more prominent, and a considerable extension was given by judicial interpretation to the scope of the act of 1842. “Literary matter of lasting Recent extensions. benefit to the world” came to include every publication (not being illegal) which could be described as “literary” or “original,” the criterion as to the latter qualification being, in the last resort, whether (see Trade Auxiliary Co. v. Middlesborough Association, 1889, 40 Ch.D. 425) the author or compiler has really put his own brain-work into it.

6. The most marked and certain progress has been in the application of the law of copyright to the periodical press, in order to protect within reasonable limits the labour and expenditure of newspapers that obtain for the Newspapers. public the earliest news and arrange it for publication. It is settled law since 1881 (Walter v. Howe, 17 Ch.D. 708, overruling Cox v. Land & Water Journal Co., 1869), that a newspaper is a book within the meaning of the act, and can claim all rights that a book has under the Copyright Act. Thus, leading articles, special articles, and even news items are protected (Walter v. Steinkopff, 1892, 3 Ch. 489; Exchange Telegraph Co. v. Gregory and Co., 1896, 1 Q.B. 147). Current prices of stocks and shares, translations, the compilation of a directory, summaries of legal proceedings, and other similar literary work, so far as the literary form, the labour and money are concerned, are equally protected. In short, the test may now be broadly stated to be, whether labour of the brain and expenditure of money have been given for the production; whilst the old requirement of original matter is very broadly interpreted. The leading case on the subject is Walter v. Lane (decided in the House of Lords, 6th August 1900). The question there raised was, whether or not copyright applied under the act of 1842 in respect of verbatim reports of speeches. Four law lords, viz. Lord Chancellor Halsbury, Lord Davey, Lord James of Hereford and Lord Brampton upheld the claim to copyright in such cases, whilst Lord Robertson was the sole dissentient.

Apart from newspapers, protection has been extended to publications having no literary character; Messrs Maple’s furniture catalogue, and the Stock Exchange prices on the “tape” have been awarded the same protection as directories. The courts have declined to protect works which are mere copies of railway time-tables, or the “tips” of a sporting prophet, or mechanical devices with no independent literary matter, such as patterns for cutting ladies’ sleeves.

7. The publication of lectures without consent of the authors or their assignees is prohibited by the Lecture Copyright Act 1835, which reinforces the common law against publication of “unpublished” matter, and gives a copyright Lectures. for 28 years. This act, however, excepts from its provisions: (1) lectures of which notice has not been given two days before their delivery to two justices of the peace living within 5 m. to the place of delivery (an impracticable condition), and (2) lectures delivered in universities and other public institutions. Sermons by clergy of the established Church are believed to fall within this exception. The leading cases are Nicols v. Pitman, 1884, 26 Ch.D. 374, and Caird v. Sime, 1887, 12 A.C. 326.

8. The writer of private letters sent to another person may in general restrain their publication. It was urged in some of the cases that the sender had abandoned his property in the letter by the act of sending; but this was denied Private letters. by Lord Hardwicke (Pope v. Curl in 1741), who held that at most the receiver only might take some kind of joint property in the letter along with the author. Judge Story, in the American case of Folsom v. Marsh, 2 Story (Amer.) 100, states the law as follows: “The author of any letter or letters, and his representatives, whether they are literary letters or letters of business, possess the sole and exclusive copyright therein; and no person, neither those to whom they are addressed, nor other persons, have any right or authority to publish the same upon their own account or for their own benefit.” But there may be special occasions justifying such publication. See also the English case of Macmillan v. Dent (1905).

9. The question of what is an infringement of copyright has been the subject of much discussion. It was decided under the statute of 1709 that a repetition from memory was not a publication so as to be an infringement of Test of infringement. copyright. In the case of Reade v. Conquest, 1861, 9 C.B., the same view was taken. The defendant had dramatized the plaintiff’s novel It’s Never too Late to Mend, and the piece was performed at his theatre. This was held to be no breach of copyright; but the circulation of copies of a drama, so taken from a copyright novel, whether gratuitously or for sale, is not allowed. Then again it is often a difficult question to decide whether the alleged piratical copyright does more than make that fair use of the original author’s materials which the law permits. It is not every act of borrowing literary matter from another which is piracy, and the difficulty is to draw the line between what is fair and what is unfair. Lord Eldon put the question thus,—whether the second publication is a legitimate use of the other in the fair exercise of a mental operation deserving the character of an original work. Another test proposed is “whether you find on the part of the defendant an animus furandi—an intention to take for the purpose of saving himself labour.” No one, it has been said, has a right to take, whether with or without acknowledgment, a material and substantial portion of another’s work, his arguments, his illustrations, his authorities, for the purpose of making or improving a rival publication. When the materials are open to all, an author may acquire copyright in his selection or arrangement of them. Several cases have arisen on this point between the publishers of rival directories. Here it has been held that the subsequent compiler is bound to do for himself what the original compiler had done. When the materials are thus in medio, as the phrase is, it is considered a fair test of piracy to examine whether the mistakes of both works are the same. If they are, piracy will be inferred. Translations stand to each other in the same relation as books constructed of materials in common. The animus furandi, mentioned above as a test of piracy, does not imply deliberate intention to steal; it may be quite compatible with ignorance even of the copyright work. Abridgments, moreover, of original works appear to be favoured by the courts—when the act of abridgment is itself an act of the understanding, “employed in carrying a large work into a smaller compass, and rendering it less expensive.” Lord Hatherley, however, in Tinsley v. Lacy, 1863, 1 H. & M. 747, incidentally expressed his disapproval of this feeling—holding that the courts had gone far enough in this direction, and that it was difficult to acquiesce in the reason sometimes given that the compiler of an abridgment is a benefactor to mankind by assisting in the diffusion of knowledge. A mere selection or compilation, so as to bring the materials into smaller space, will not be a bona fide abridgment; “there must be real substantial condensation, and intellectual labour, and judgment bestowed thereon” (Justice Story). A publication professing to be A Christmas Ghost Story, Reoriginated from the Original by Charles Dickens, Esq., and Analytically Condensed expressly for this Work, was found (Dickens v. Lee, 1844, 8 Jur. 183) to be an invasion of Charles Dickens’s copyright in the original.

10. There can be no copyright in any but innocent publications. Books of an immoral or irreligious tendency have been repeatedly decided to be incapable of being made the subject of copyright. In a case (Lawrence v. Smith, Injurious works. 1 Jac. 471) before Lord Eldon in 1822, an injunction had been obtained against a pirated publication of the plaintiff’s Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man, which the judge refused to continue, “recollecting that the immortality of the soul is one of the doctrines of the Scriptures, and considering that the law does not give protection to those who contradict the Scriptures.” The same judge refused in 1822 to restrain a piracy of Lord Byron’s Cain, and Don Juan was refused protection in 1823. Compare also Cowan v. Milbourn, 1867, L.R. 2 Ex. 230, in which a contract to let a room for lectures of an irreligious character was held not to be binding.

11. The quasi-copyright in titles of books, periodicals, &c. is founded on the desirability of preventing one person from putting off on the public his own productions as those of another. This is, however, not copyright, but a Titles of works. question of ordinary fraud. The name of a journal (if sufficiently established) is a species of trade-mark in which the law recognizes what it calls a “species of property,” provided any misleading of the public is involved. Thus, the Wonderful Magazine was invaded (1803) by a publication calling itself the Wonderful Magazine, New Series Improved. Bell’s Life in London was pirated (1859) by a paper calling itself the Penny Bell’s Life. The proprietors of the London Journal got an injunction (1859) against the Daily London Journal, which was projected by the person from whom they had bought their own paper, and who had covenanted with them not to publish any weekly journal of a similar nature. A song published under the title of Minnie, sung by Madame Anna Thillon and Miss Dolby at Monsieur Jullien’s concerts, was invaded (1855) by a song to the same air published as Minnie Dale, Sung at Jullien’s Concerts by Madame Anna Thillon. On the other hand, the Sphere and Spear, titles of misleading similarity, assumed by two weekly periodicals that appeared almost simultaneously in London in 1900, could not successfully attack each other, because neither had an established reputation when first adopted.

12. Dramatic and musical compositions stand on this peculiar footing, that they may be the subject of two entirely distinct rights. As writings they come within the general Copyright Act, and the unauthorized multiplication of Drama and music. copies is a piracy of the usual sort. This was decided to be so even in the case of musical compositions under the act of 1709. The Copyright Act of 1842 includes a “sheet of music” in its definition of a book. Separate from the copyright thus existing in dramatic or musical compositions is the stage-right or right of representing them on the stage; this was the right created by the Dramatic Copyright Act of 1833, in the case of dramatic pieces. This act gave the owner of the stage-right (right of representation) a period of twenty-eight years, or the duration of the author’s life if longer. The Copyright Act 1842 extended this right to musical compositions, and made the period in both cases the same as that fixed for copyright. And the act expressly provides (meeting a contrary decision in the courts) that the assignment of copyright of dramatic and musical pieces shall not include the right of representation unless that is expressly mentioned. The act of 1833 prohibited representation “at any place of public entertainment,” a phrase which was omitted in the act of 1842, and it may perhaps be inferred that the restriction is now more general and would extend to any unauthorized representation anywhere. A question has also been raised whether, to obtain the benefit of the act, a musical piece must be of a dramatic character. The dramatization of a novel, i.e. the acting of a drama constructed out of materials derived from a novel, is not necessarily an infringement of the copyright in the novel (supposing it to be possible to do it without making any sort of colourable copy of the literary form), but to publish a drama so constructed has been held to be a breach of copyright (Tinsley v. Lacy, 1863, 1 H. & M. 747, where defendant had published two plays founded on two of Miss Braddon’s novels, and reproducing the incidents and in many cases the language of the original). Where two persons dramatize the same novel, what, it may be asked, are their respective rights? In Toole v. Young, 1874, 9 Q.B. 523, this point actually arose. A, the author of a published novel, dramatized it and assigned the drama to the plaintiff, but it was never printed, published or represented upon the stage. B, ignorant of A’s drama, also dramatized the novel and assigned his drama to the defendant, who represented it on the stage. It was held that any one might dramatize A’s published novel, and that the representation of B’s drama was not a representation of A’s drama. This case may be compared with Reade v. Lacy (1861).

In the “Little Lord Fauntleroy” case (1888) the person who dramatized the novel of another without his consent, an operation up to that time believed to be unassailable in law, was attacked successfully, by preventing him from using printed or written copies of the play, either to deposit with the lord chamberlain or as prompt-books. In every case where much of the original dialogue of the novel is taken, this stops the production of the dramatization.

In music, statutes of 1882 and 1888 have prevented the use of the provisions inflicting penalties for the performance of copyright songs for purposes of extortion, by allowing the court to inflict a penalty of one farthing and make the plaintiff pay the costs, if justice requires it. Authors reserving the right of public performance are required to print a notice to that effect on all copies of the music.

An important decision (which appears to be a grave injustice) on musical copyright is the case of Boosey v. Whight (1899; followed in other cases—see Mabe v. Conner, 1909), in which it was held that the reproduction of copyright tunes on the perforated slips for an Aeolian or other mechanical instrument is not an infringement of copyright. In Germany it has been decided (Lincke v. Gramophone Co.) that the reproduction of copyright music on a gramophone is an infringement, and an injunction was granted. It has also been held in France that the production of copyright words (but not music) was an infringement, while in the United States the Copyright Act of 1909 extended copyright control to mechanical reproductions, and gave the copyright proprietor power to exact royalties.

The copyright in music was subject to serious injury in England from the selling of pirated copies in the streets by hawkers; and in 1902 an act was passed enabling summary proceedings to be taken for having such copies seized and destroyed. But this act had various practical defects, which still left publishers largely at the mercy of the pirates. In 1905 the evil had become so serious that the chief music publishers announced their intention of not producing any further works till the law was altered; but the new Musical Copyright Bill of that year was obstructed and talked out in the House of Commons. In November 1905 an important prosecution, instituted by Messrs Chappell on behalf of the associated music-publishers and composers, was brought against a coterie of pirates. In the session of 1906 another attempt, this time successful, was made to pass a Musical Copyright Bill. This act (the Musical Copyright Act 1906) made it a criminal offence, punishable with fine and imprisonment, to reproduce or sell, or to possess plates for the production of, pirated copies of musical works. The act also gave power to a constable to arrest without warrant any person who in any public place exposes for sale or has in his possession for sale, or canvasses or personally advertises pirated copies, provided that the apparent owner of the copyright signs an authority requesting such arrest at his own risk. Also a court of summary jurisdiction may grant a search warrant, if there is reasonable ground for believing that an offence against the act is being committed on any premises.

13. The right of foreigners under the English copyright acts produced at one time an extraordinary conflict of judicial opinion. A foreigner who during residence in the British dominions should publish a work was admitted Rights of foreigners. to have a copyright therein. The question was whether residence at the time of publication was necessary. In Cocks v. Purday, the court of common pleas held that it was not. In Boosey v. Davidson, the court of queen’s bench, following the decision of the court of common pleas in Cocks v. Purday, held that a foreign author might have copyright in works first published in England, although he was abroad at the time of publication. But the court of exchequer, in Boosey v. Purday, refused to follow these decisions, holding that the legislature intended only to protect its own subjects,—whether subjects by birth or by residence. The question came before the House of Lords on appeal in the case of Boosey v. Jeffreys (1854), in which the court of exchequer had taken the same line. The judges having been consulted were found to be divided in opinion. Six of them held that a foreigner resident abroad might acquire copyright by publishing first in England. Four maintained the contrary. The views of the minority were affirmed by the House of Lords (Lord Chancellor Cranworth and Lords Brougham and St Leonards). The lord chancellor’s opinion was founded upon “the general doctrine that a British senate would legislate for British subjects properly so called, or for such persons who might obtain that character for a time by being resident in this country, and therefore under allegiance to the crown, and under the protection of the laws of England.” Lord Brougham said that

“The statute of Anne had been passed for the purpose of encouraging learned men, and with that view that act had given them the exclusive right in their publications for twenty-one years. This, however, was clear, they had no copyright at common law, for if they had there would have been no necessity for the passing of that statute. It could scarcely be said that the legislature had decided a century and a half since that act was to be passed to create a monopoly in literary works solely for the benefit of foreigners. In the present case he was clearly of opinion that the copyright did not exist, and therefore that foreign law should not prevail over British law where there was such diversity between the two.”

Against the authority of this case, however, must be set the opinion of two great lord chancellors—Lord Cairns and Lord Westbury. In the case of Routledge v. Low, L.R. 3 H. L. 100, 1868, Lord Cairns said,

“The aim of the legislature is to increase the common stock of the literature of the country; and if that stock can be increased by the publication for the first time here of a new and valuable work composed by an alien who has never been in the country, I see nothing in the wording of the act which prevents, nothing in the policy of the act which should prevent, and everything in the professed object of the act and in its wide and general provisions which should entitle such a person to the protection of the act, in return and compensation for the addition he has made to the literature of the country.”

And Lord Westbury said, in the same case,

“The case of Jeffreys v. Boosey is a decision which is attached to and depends on the particular statute of which it was the exponent, and as that statute had been repealed and is now replaced by another act, with different enactments expressed in different language, the case of Jeffreys v. Boosey is not a binding authority in the exposition of this later statute. The act appears to have been dictated by a wise and liberal spirit, and in the same spirit it should be interpreted, adhering of course to the settled rules of legal construction. The preamble is, in my opinion, quite inconsistent with the conclusion that the protection given by the statute was intended to be confined to the works of British authors. The real condition of obtaining its advantages is the first publication by the author of his work in the United Kingdom. Nothing renders necessary his bodily presence here at the time, and I find it impossible to discover any reason why it should be required, or what it can add to the merit of the first publication. If the intrinsic merits of the reasoning on which, Jeffreys v. Boosey was decided be considered, I must frankly admit that it by no means commands my assent.”

These conclusions might follow also from the Naturalization Act of 1870, which enacts that real and personal property of every description may be taken, acquired, held, and disposed of by an alien in the same manner in all respects as by a natural born British subject. At the present time the International Copyright Act has largely removed the question from the area of conflict.

14. International Copyright.—Books published in one country and circulated in another depend for their protection in the latter upon international copyright. Until 1886 international copyright in Great Britain rested on a series of orders The Bern Convention. in council, made under the authority of the International Copyright Act 1844 (superseding acts of 1820 and 1826), conferring on the authors of a particular foreign country the same rights in Great Britain as British authors, on condition of their registering their work in Great Britain within a year of first publication abroad. A condition of the granting of each order was that the sovereign should be satisfied that reciprocal protection was given in the country in question to British authors. As the result of conferences at Bern in 1885 and 1887, this system was simplified and made more general by the treaty known as “The Bern Convention,” signed at Bern on the 5th of September 1887. The contracting parties were the British Empire, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Tunis and Hayti. Luxemburg, Monaco, Norway and Japan afterwards joined. Austria and Hungary have a separate convention with Great Britain, concluded on the 24th of April 1893. The notable absentees among European powers are Holland and Russia. So far as the United States is concerned, the matter is regulated by the American copyright acts, which are dealt with separately below.

The basis of the Bern convention was that authors of any of the countries of the Union, or the publishers of works first published in one of them, should enjoy in each of the other countries of the Union the same rights as the law of that country granted to native authors. The only conditions were that the work should comply with the necessary formalities, such as registration, in the country where it was first published, in which case it was exempt from all such formalities elsewhere; and that the protection required from any country should not exceed that given in the country of origin. The rights conferred included the sole right of making a translation of the work for ten years from its first publication. The convention was retrospective; that is to say, it applied to copyright works published before its coming into existence, each country being allowed to protect vested interests, or copies already made by others, as it should think best.

The rights of foreign authors in Great Britain rest on legislation giving effect to the Bern convention, namely, the International Copyright Act of 1886, and an order in council made under that act, dated 28th November 1887. These confer on the author or publisher of a work of literature or art first published in one of the countries which are parties to the convention, after compliance with the formalities necessary there, the same rights as if the work had been first published in the United Kingdom, provided that those rights are not greater than those enjoyed in the foreign country.

The rights of British authors in foreign countries rest in each country on the domestic legislation by which the particular country has given effect to its promise contained in the Bern convention, and are enforced by the courts of that country. The Bern convention was revised in minor details not affecting its broad principles by a conference meeting in 1896 in Paris, and Great Britain adopted the results of their labours by an order in council dated 7th March 1898. A further simplification in the international law of copyright was expected to result from the efforts of the international conference at Berlin in 1908, July 1910 being the latest date at which ratification by the states concerned might take place, but it cannot here be stated to what extent legislation may give effect to the decisions arrived at. So far as these decisions affect Great Britain, the greatest alterations of existing law would be in establishing throughout the Union protection of musical copyright, especially with regard to singing and talking machines, and also in the matter of newspaper copyright. The conference adopted a threefold division of newspaper matter: (1) serial stories, tales and all other work, literary, scientific and artistic, which is to have absolute protection; (2) all newspaper matter, except the foregoing and mere items of general news (faits divers), of which reproduction is to be permitted on acknowledgment of the source, unless such reproduction is expressly forbidden; (3) news of the day and simple facts, to which no protection is given. An endeavour was also made to have a uniform period throughout the Union for copyright of the author’s life and 50 years.

15. Colonial Copyright.—Under English copyright, books of the United Kingdom were formerly protected in the colonies by the Colonial Copyright Act of 1847, and copies of them printed or reprinted elsewhere could not be imported into the colonies. In 1876 a royal commission was appointed to consider the whole question of home, colonial and international copyright; and various recommendations were made. But the matter now rests on the English International Copyright Act 1886, which contains provisions designed to extend the benefit of the British copyright acts to works first produced in the colonies, while allowing each colony to legislate separately for works first produced within its own limits. The colonies at present are all included in the system of international copyright established by the Bern convention.

In 1875 an act was passed (re-enacted in 1886 in the revised Canadian statutes) to give effect to an act of the parliament of the Dominion of Canada respecting copyright. An order in council in 1868 had suspended the prohibition against the importation of foreign reprints of English books into Canada, and the parliament had passed a bill on the subject of copyright as to which doubts had arisen whether it was not repugnant to the Order in Council. It was also enacted that, after the bill came into operation, if an English copyright book became entitled to Canadian copyright, no Canadian reprints thereof should be imported into the United Kingdom, unless by the owner of the copyright. The following points in the Canadian act are worth noting:—Any person printing or publishing an unprinted manuscript without the consent of the author or legal proprietor shall be liable in damages (§ 3). Any person domiciled in Canada, or in any part of the British possessions, or being a citizen of any country having an international copyright treaty with the United Kingdom, who is the author of any book, map, &c., &c., shall have the sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, &c., for the term of twenty-eight years. The work must be printed and published, or reprinted or republished in Canada, whether before or after its publication elsewhere: and the Canadian privilege is not to be continued after the copyright has ceased elsewhere. And “no immoral or licentious, or irreligious, or treasonable, or seditious literary, scientific or artistic work” shall be the subject of copyright (§ 4). A further period of fourteen years will be continued to the author or his widow and children. An “interim copyright” pending publication may be obtained by depositing in the office of the minister of agriculture (who keeps the register of copyrights) a copy of the title of the work; and works printed first in a series of articles in a periodical, but intended to be published as books, may have the benefit of this interim copyright. If a copyright work becomes out of print, the owner may be notified of the act through the minister of agriculture, who, if he does not apply a remedy, may license a new edition, subject to a royalty to the owner. Anonymous books may be entered in the name of the first publisher. In 1889 an amending Canadian act was passed, which led to a long controversy with the Mother Country,—the imperial government refusing to sanction it,—till in 1900 a compromise was effected, and a further act amending that of 1886 became law. It applies only to books copyright in Canada, and, subject to certain reservations, allows the minister of agriculture to prohibit the importation, without consent of the licensees, of any copies printed elsewhere of books published in the British dominions licensed by the owners to be reproduced in Canada.

The Australian states all have copyright laws modelled on the English. New Zealand provides for a term of 28 years, or the author’s life. In Cape Colony the term for books is the author’s life and 5 years, or a minimum of 30 years. The Indian act of 1847 is modelled on the English.

16. Other Countries.—The following notes give the general terms of the copyright law in other countries of importance. Foreign law. For details reference must be made to text-books. We only deal specifically with the history and particulars of American copyright.

Austria, by a law of 1895, gives copyright for thirty years after author’s death.

Belgium.—Copyright formerly perpetual, now limited to the life of the author, and 50 years thereafter.

France.—Copyright in France is recognized in the most ample manner. Two distinct rights are secured by law—1st, the right of reproduction of literary works, musical compositions, and works of art; and 2nd, the right of representation of dramatic works and musical compositions. The period is for the life of the author and fifty years after his death. After the author’s death the surviving consort has the usufructuary enjoyment of the rights which the author has not disposed of in his lifetime or by will, subject to reduction for the benefit of the author’s protected heirs if any. The author may dispose of his rights in the most absolute manner in the forms and within the limits of the Code Napoléon. Piracy is a crime punishable by fine of not less than 100 nor more than 2000 francs; in the case of a seller from 25 to 500 francs. The pirated edition will be confiscated. Piracy also forms the ground for a civil action of damages to the amount of the injury sustained—the produce of the confiscation, if any, to go towards payment of the indemnity (Penal Code, Art. 425-429).