At the date, now fourteen years since, of the first publication of these letters, the important case of authors _versus_ readers--makers of books _versus_ consumers of facts and ideas--had for several years been again on trial in the high court of the people. But few years previously the same plaintiffs had obtained a verdict giving large extension of _time_ to the monopoly privileges they had so long enjoyed. Not content therewith, they now claimed greater _space_, desiring to have those privileges so extended as to include within their domain the vast population of the British Empire. To that hour no one had appeared before the court on the part of the defendants, prepared seriously to que…
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