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 the Foundation’s trademarks. Upon discovering that Maaherra was responsible for this, the Foundation filed the instant suit in 1991. See Urantia Foundation v. Maaherra, 895 F.Supp. 1338 (D.Ariz.1995) (recounting this chronology).

This appeal is from the district court’s October 25, 1995 amended final judgment based on its February 10, 1995 order granting summary judgment to Maaherra on the Foundation’s copyright infringement claim. See Urantia, 895 F.Supp. at 1347.

A threshold issue in this case is whether the work, because it is claimed to embody the words of celestial beings rather than human beings, is copyrightable at all. “To qualify for copyright protection, a work must be original to the author.” Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc., 499 U.S. 340, 345, 111 S.Ct. 1282, 1287, 113 L.Ed.2d 358 (1991) (citation omitted). The core statute, 17 U.S.C. § 102(a), provides: "[c]opyright protection subsists … in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, … from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."

17 U.S.C. § 102(a). “Original, as the term is used in copyright, means only that the work was independently created by the author (as opposed to copied from other works), and that it possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity.” Feist, 499 U.S. at 345, 111 S.Ct. at 1287 (citation omitted).

Maaherra claims that there can be no valid copyright in the Book because it lacks the requisite ingredient of human creativity, and that therefore the Book is not a “work of authorship” within the meaning of the Copyright Act. The copyright laws, of course, do not expressly require “human” authorship, and considerable controversy has arisen in recent years over the copyrightability of computer-generated works. See Arthur R. Miller, Copyright Protection for Computer Programs, Databases, and Computer-Generated Works: Is Anything New Since CONTU?, 106 Harv.L.Rev. 977 (1993). We agree with Maaherra, however, that it is not creations of divine beings that the copyright laws were intended to protect, and that in this case some element of human creativity must have occurred in order for the Book to be copyrightable. At the very least, for a worldly entity to be guilty of infringing a copyright, that entity must have copied something created by another worldly entity.

The district court held that the Book was copyrightable. However, if the court erred in this regard, we need not reach the other issues in the case.

The copyrightability issue is not a metaphysical one requiring the courts to determine whether or not the Book had celestial origins. In this case, the belief both parties may have regarding those origins, and their claim that the Book is a product of divine revelation, is a matter of faith, and obviously a crucial element in the promotion and dissemination of the Book. For copyright purposes, however, a work is copyrightable if copyrightability is claimed by the first human beings who compiled, selected, coordinated, and arranged the Urantia teachings, “in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.” 17 U.S.C. § 101 (defining a “compilation”). See also 17 U.S.C. § 103 (providing that compilations are copyrightable). Those who were responsible for the creation of the tangible literary form that could be read by others, could have claimed copyright for themselves as “authors,” because they were responsible for the revelations appearing “ ‘in such a way’ as to render the work as a whole original.” Feist, 499 U.S. at 358, 111 S.Ct. at 1294 (referring to the statutory definition of compilation).

The Supreme Court in Feist, supra, held that the white pages of the plaintiff’s telephone directory did not qualify for copyright protection, because there was nothing original about listing names of the area’s telephone subscribers in alphabetical order. Yet Feist also recognized that a compilation of facts may possess the requisite originality when the author chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how


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 fortable on a bed of clean straw than on this damp ground." We all consented to it, and left the gloomy abode of those nocturnal sportsmen: We knocked a good while at the door of the inn before it was opened; at last the landlord appeared, stammering, lost in wonder, "God be praised that you are still alive, how did you escape?"

"The Lieutenant silenced him by some hasty lies, and promised to give him a full account of the whole adventure after he should have rested a little."

"Gentlemen," said he, as soon as he got up in the morning, "next night I will go once more to the haunted castle, and spend the night in the court-yard, will you keep me company."

"The Baron looked at me as if he wished not to accept the proposal: I did so. "We cannot," said I, "stay here a day longer,

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 and such an undertaking would, besides, be too dangerous for only four people."

"O!" exclaimed the Lieutenant, "if that is all you have to say against it, then I will soon make you easy: We will take a dozen stout fellows from the village with us, they will not hesitate to accompany us if we give them a couple of dollars and a good dram; it will be devilish good fun, and to-morrow, with the first dawn of day, I will depart with you."

"The Baron consented to the proposal, and I myself did not dislike it; in short, we remained, and sent our postillion through the village to publish, "That all young fellows who would go with us to the castle next night, should have six-pence each, and as much brandy as they could drink."

"In less than half an hour the whole village was assembled round the door of the inn. We selected fifteen of the stoutest, or-


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 to arrange the data so that readers may use them effectively. Feist simply reaffirmed what the statute provides and what had been known since The Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U.S. 82, 25 L.Ed. 550 (1879) and Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U.S. 53, 4 S.Ct. 279, 28 L.Ed. 349 (1884): that copyright protection only extends to those components of the work that are “original” to the “author”, and not to the facts themselves. Feist, 499 U.S. at 346–47, 350–51, 111 S.Ct. at 1288–89, 1290–91.

In this case, the Contact Commission may have received some guidance from celestial beings when the Commission posed the questions, but the members of the Contact Commission chose and formulated the specific questions asked. These questions materially contributed to the structure of the Papers, to the arrangement of the revelations in each Paper, and to the organization and order in which the Papers followed one another. We hold that the human selection and arrangement of the revelations in this case could not have been so “mechanical or routine as to require no creativity whatsoever.” Feist, 499 U.S. at 362, 111 S.Ct. at 1296. We conclude, therefore, that the “extremely low” threshold level of creativity required for copyright protection has been met in this case. See Feist, 499 U.S. at 345, 111 S.Ct. at 1287. [sic] (“The vast majority of works make the grade quite easily, as they possess some creative spark, ‘no matter how crude, humble, or obvious’ it might be.”) (quotation omitted).

It must be remembered that the claim of copyright infringement in this ease concerns the verbatim copying of the entire Urantia Book, including the selection and arrangement of the revelations into the Papers that comprise the Book. This case does not concern the use of a single “revelation” outside the context of the Book, which for purposes of this case would be analogous to a “fact,” and which of course would not be copyrightable. See Feist, 499 U.S. at 347, 111 S.Ct. at 1288–89.

This principle, the distinction between revelations as facts and the expression of these revelations, was recognized in a 1941 copyright infringement case that involved similar claims of divine authorship. Oliver v. Saint Germain Foundation, 41 F.Supp. 296 (S.D.Cal.1941). In Oliver, as here, the plaintiff’s religious text proclaimed that the facts contained in the text had come straight from a spirit, and that the spirit was the author of the history in the text. Id. at 297. In that case, however, the plaintiff (unsuccessfully) claimed copyright protection in the divine revelations themselves, and in the methods of spiritual communication, rather than in the plaintiff’s specific selection or arrangement of these divine revelations. The defendant in Oliver had not copied that arrangement and selection, but simply had written another text using the same divine “facts.” Id. at 299. The court in Oliver made it clear that, had the claim been that the selection and arrangement of the divine revelations had been infringed, the plaintiff’s copyright infringement claim might have had merit. Id.

Thus, notwithstanding the Urantia Book’s claimed non-human origin, the Papers in the form in which they were originally organized and compiled by the members of the Contact Commission were at least partially the product of human creativity. The Papers thus did not belong to that “narrow category of works in which the creative spark is utterly lacking or so trivial as to be virtually nonexistent.” Feist, 499 U.S. at 359, 111 S.Ct. at 1294 (citation omitted). Therefore, the Papers were works amenable to common law copyright protection, and the district court correctly so held.

The district court held that even though a common law copyright was created at the time the Papers came into being, the Foundation itself had not adequately shown that it owned that copyright in 1955, when it published the Book, so as to entitle it to claim the statutory copyright. Urantia, 895 F.Supp. at 1350–51, 1354. Because the district court was of the opinion that the Foundation had come into possession of the plates “serendipitously,” the court found that the Foundation had failed to establish how it had become the “proprietor” of the copyright in the Papers. Id. at 1354.


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Rh impending catastrophe passed unheeded by the eyes and ears of those who were recklessly preparing it.

Who, indeed, could have foreseen the issue? Looking back upon events our blindness appears as insane as that of the man who should rear on his farm a litter of tigers. Yet history teaches that in all ages men have been sadly deficient in the prophetic instinct, and blind to all signs of the calamities they are bringing on themselves. When the bolt has fallen from the (to them) clear sky, then indeed all is plain enough.

The warnings to which I allude were of the following nature. On one occasion—and then on another and another in quick succession—-— [sic]it happened that a machine of some description, while fulfilling admirably the functions designed by its inventor, displayed powers or performed operations which that individual had certainly not contemplated. Thus, the newest class of locomotives were arranged to stop automatically whenever the signals were against them. But no provision has been made for a similar stoppage in presence of accidental obstructions. When therefore a railway train travelling at thirty-five


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Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 1.djvu/87

 dered them to provide themselves with proper arms, and to appear by ten o'clock at night at the inn. Our landlord, who beheld these preparations in dumb amazement, believed firmly that we must be arch necromancers, and his fancy having been fired by the wonderful account of our nocturnal adventure, which the Lieutenant had given him, he was himself not unwilling to go with us to the castle, and to bid defiance to the infernal hosts: However, as soon as it grew dark, his courage died away, and he wished success to our undertaking, telling us, he could not leave his house."

"Our little army was assembled before ten o'clock, armed with scythes, poles, hay forks and flails. We ordered the landlord to give a dram to every one, took some tables, benches, lamps, and a small cask of brandy with us, and marched in triumph towards the Castle."


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 The district court accurately observed that the selection of Dr. Sadler’s patient as the amanuensis for communicating the teachings eventually transcribed on the plates was indeed serendipitous. We believe the controlling issue, however, is whether, as of the time of publication, the Foundation, the copyright claimant, could trace its title back to the humans who owned the original common law copyright. We hold that it could.

Under the 1909 Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §§ 1, ''et. [sic] seq.'' (superseded in 1978), an unpublished work was protected by common law copyright from the moment it was created, until it was either published with proper notice, or otherwise received protection under federal copyright law. See Twin Books Corp. v. Walt Disney Co., 83 F.3d 1162, 1165 (9th Cir.1996). The Papers were therefore protected by common law copyright from the moment they were created by the members of the Contact Commission until publication of the Book. The question is whether those humans transferred that copyright to the Foundation.

Even though the precise words “assign” or “transfer” do not appear in the trust instrument, the members of the Contact Commission demonstrated their intent to transfer the common law copyright in the Papers to the Foundation both through the language of the trust instrument itself, and by delivery of the printing plates to the Foundation. The trust instrument provided that the trustees of the Foundation were “to retain absolute and unconditional control of all plates and other media for the printing and reproduction of the Urantia Book and any translation thereof….” See Burton, supra, at 219. Under the 1909 Act, a common law copyright could be as signed without the necessity of observing any formalities. D. Nimmer & M.B. Nimmer, Nimmer on Copyright, § 10.03[B][2], at 10-45 (1996) [hereinafter Nimmer ]. In fact, the mere possession of the printing plates by the Foundation, the purported assignee, may have been sufficient to establish an assinment as against a third party, such as Maaherra, who does not claim any superior copyright interest. Id. at 10-46. Professor Nimmer notes that “[t]his was particularly true where over a long period of time, the author and other interested parties had acquiesced in the putative assignee’s ownership.” Id. (citing, inter alia, Burton, supra). Because the intent to transfer ownership of the plates to the Foundation was clear, and the plates were delivered to the Foundation, we hold that the members of the Contact Commission also intended to transfer, and did in fact transfer, their copyright in the Papers to the Foundation. Thus, when the Foundation published the Book in 1955, the original statutory copyright in the Book automatically vested in the Foundation. See Nimmer, § 9.01[B][2] at 9-17.

That does not conclude our inquiry, however, because we are dealing here not only with the validity of the original copyright, but with the validity of the renewal.

Maaherra challenges on a number of theories, the validity of the copyright renewal certificate the Foundation obtained in 1983. The certificate stated that the Foundation was claiming renewal as the “proprietor of copyright in a work made for hire.” Maaherra first contends that the Book was not a “work made for hire” and that the renewal for that reason is invalid.

The 1983 version of the renewal provision of the 1976 Copyright Act, applicable to the Foundation’s renewal, had two provisos: one dealing with renewals by proprietors of certain works and the other dealing with the renewals of all other works. The statute stated in relevant part: Any copyright, the first term of which is subsisting on January 1, 1978, shall endure for twenty-eight years from the date it was originally secured: Provided, that in the case of any posthumous work or of any periodical, cyclopedic, or other composite work upon which the copyright was originally secured by the proprietor thereof, or of any work copyrighted by a corporate body (otherwise than as assignee or licensee of the individual author), or by an employer for whom such work is made for hire, the proprietor of such copyright shall


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336 mother out of reach of harm, while she begged him, with all a mother’s unselfishness, to leave her to perish and save himself.

After browsing among the stately ruins of Rome, of Baiæ, of Pompeii, and after glancing down the long marble ranks of battered and nameless imperial heads that stretch down the corridors of the Vatican, one thing strikes me with a force it never had before: the unsubstantial, unlasting character of fame. Men lived long lives, in the olden time, and struggled feverishly through them, toiling like slaves, in oratory, in generalship, or in literature, and then laid them down and died, happy in the possession of an enduring history and a deathless name. Well, twenty little centuries flutter away, and what is left of these things? A crazy inscription on a block of stone, which snuffy antiquaries bother over and tangle up and make nothing out of but a bare name (which they spell wrong)—no history, no tradition, no poetry—nothing that can give it even a passing interest. What may be left of General Grant’s great name forty centuries hence? This—in the Encyclopedia for A. D. 5868, possibly:

These thoughts sadden me. I will to bed.


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 "We pitched our camp in the court-yard, not far from the entrance, the peasants placed themselves round the brandy cask, lighted their pipes, and expected with pleasure the appearance of the airy gentlemen."

"Another advantage we reaped from that honest company was, that we had no need to keep sleep at a distance by reading, for the merriment of our little army rose soon to the highest pitch, and these jovial fellows being heated by the contents of our little cask, challenged his satanic majesty and all his infernal hosts amid peals of roaring laughter."

"It was now past eleven o'clock, and the noise began to abate, some of our gentlemen were noding, and some snoring, we were therefore obliged to beg those who had not yet yielded to the powerful charms of sleep, to give us a song, which they instantly did in so vociferous a manner, that our hearing organs were most painfully affected—the sleepers started up when they heard that terrible noise,


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OME, again! For the first time, in many weeks, the ship’s entire family met and shook hands on the quarter-deck. They had gathered from many points of the compass and from many lands, but not one was missing; there was no tale of sickness or death among the flock to dampen the pleasure of the reunion. Once more there was a full audience on deck to listen to the sailors’ chorus as they got the anchor up, and to wave an adieu to the land as we sped away from Naples. The seats were full at dinner again, the domino parties were complete, and the life and bustle on the upper deck in the fine moonlight at night was like old times—old times that had been gone weeks only, but yet they were weeks so crowded with incident, adventure and excitement, that they seemed almost like years. There was no lack of cheerfulness on board the Quaker City. For once, her title was a misnomer.

At seven in the evening, with the western horizon all golden from the sunken sun, and specked with distant ships, the full moon sailing high over head, the dark blue of the sea under foot, and a strange sort of twilight affected by all these different lights and colors around us and about us, we sighted superb Stromboli. With what majesty the monarch held his lonely state above the level sea! Distance clothed him in a purple gloom, and added a veil of shimmering mist that so softened his rugged features that we seemed to see him through a web of silver gauze. His torch was out; his fires were smoldering; a tall column of smoke that rose up and lost


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196


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338 itself in the growing moonlight was all the sign he gave that he was a living Autocrat of the Sea and not the spectre of a dead one.

At two in the morning we swept through the Straits of Messina, and so bright was the moonlight that Italy on the one hand and Sicily on the other seemed almost as distinctly visible as though we looked at them from the middle of a street we were traversing. The city of Messina, milk-white, and starred and spangled all over with gaslights, was a fairy spectacle. A great party of us were on deck smoking and making a noise, and waiting to see famous Scylla and Charybdis. And presently the Oracle stepped out with his eternal spy-glass and squared himself on the deck like another Colossus of Rhodes. It was a surprise to see him abroad at such an hour. Nobody supposed he cared any thing about an old fable like that of Scylla and Charybdis. One of the boys said:


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 be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright in such work for the further term of 47 years…. And provided further, that in the case of any other copyrighted work, including a contribution by an individual author to a periodical or to a cyclopedic or other composite work, the author of such work, if still living, or the widow, widower, or children of the author, if the author be not living, or if such author, widow, widower, or children be not living, then the author’s executors, or in the absence of a will, his or her next of kin shall be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright in such work for a further term of 47 years…. 17 U.S.C. § 304(a) (1983).

As to whether the Book was a “work made for hire,” Maaherra is probably correct that it was not. The Foundation was never the employer of any of the spiritual beings, of Dr. Sadler, of the Contact Commission, or of any other entity that played a role in the creation of the Papers that were eventually transferred to the Foundation. An employment (or commissioning) relationship at the time the work is created is a condition for claiming renewal as the proprietor of a “work made for hire”..” [sic] See 17 U.S.C. § 101; Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co., 188 U.S. 239, 23 S.Ct. 298, 47 L.Ed. 460 (1903); Lin-Brook Builders Hardware v. Gertler, 352 F.2d 298 (9th Cir.1965); Rohauer v. Friedman, 306 F.2d 933 (9th Cir.1962).

Before the district court and on appeal, the Foundation has contended that it would have been entitled to claim renewal as the “proprietor of a composite work.” The district court rejected this contention. Urantia, 895 F.Supp. at 1354. The problem, in the district court’s view, was not whether the structure of the Book satisfied the definition of a “composite work;” the district court assumed that it did. Rather, the district court held that the Foundation had failed to establish “proprietorship” at the time the original copyright was secured because it had failed to show a “contractual arrangement entitling [it] to secure copyright in the various contributions.” Urantia, 895 F.Supp. at 1354 (citing Cadence Industries Corp. v. Ringer, 450 F.Supp. 59, 64 (S.D.N.Y.1978)). On this point, we have held the court erred. The language of the trust instrument was, moreover, very broad, and sufficient to transfer not only the interest in the original copyright term, but in the renewal as well. See Burton, supra, at 219.

Maaherra on appeal also contends that even if the Foundation would have been entitled to secure the Book’s renewal rights as the “proprietor of a composite work,” the inaccuracy in the description of the claim in the Foundation’s application for renewal destroyed the validity of its renewal copyright. This issue the district court did not decide.

Timeliness was the only clear statutory requirement for copyright renewal of a work whose original statutory copyright was secured prior to January 1, 1964. The renewal statute in effect at the time the Foundation renewed its copyright in the Book required the claimant to apply for and register its renewal claim within the last year of the original copyright term. See 17 U.S.C. § 304(a) (1983) (providing that copyright was properly renewed “where application for … renewal … shall have been made to the Copyright Office and duly registered therein within one year prior to the expiration of the original term of copyright” and that “in default of the registration of such application for renewal … the copyright in any work shall terminate at the expiration of twenty-eight years from the date copyright was originally secured[ ]”). Thus, the Foundation had to renew the Book’s copyright by December 31, 1983, when the original copyright term was to expire. See 17 U.S.C. § 305 (copyright terms “run to the end of the calendar year in which they would otherwise expire[ ]”). The Foundation timely applied for renewal in January of 1983.

Maaherra contends, however, that timeliness is not enough. Focusing on the language of the first proviso of Section


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Rh “Hello, doctor, what are you doing up here at this time of night?—What do you want to see this place for?”

“What do I want to see this place for? Young man, little do you know me, or you wouldn’t ask such a question. I wish to see all the places that’s mentioned in the Bible.”

“Stuff—this place isn’t mentioned in the Bible.”

“It ain’t mentioned in the Bible!—this place ain’t—well now, what place is this, since you know so much about it?”

“Why it’s Scylla and Charybdis.”

“Scylla and Cha—confound it, I thought it was Sodom and Gomorrah!”

And he closed up his glass and went below. The above is the ship story. Its plausibility is marred a little by the fact that the Oracle was not a biblical student, and did not spend much of his time instructing himself about Scriptural localities.—They say the Oracle complains, in this hot weather, lately, that the only beverage in the ship that is passable, is the butter. He did not mean butter, of course, but inasmuch as that article remains in a melted state now since we are out of ice, it is fair to give him the credit of getting one long word in the right place, anyhow, for once in his life. He said, in Rome, that the Pope was a noble-looking old man, but he never did think much of his Iliad.

We spent one pleasant day skirting along the Isles of Greece. They are very mountainous. Their prevailing tints are gray and brown, approaching to red. Little white villages surrounded by trees, nestle in the valleys or roost upon the lofty perpendicular sea-walls.

We had one fine sunset—a rich carmine flush that suffused the western sky and cast a ruddy glow far over the sea.—Fine sunsets seem to be rare in this part of the world—or at least, striking ones. They are soft, sensuous, lovely—they are exquisite, refined, effeminate, but we have seen no sunsets here yet like the gorgeous conflagrations that flame in the track of the sinking sun in our high northern latitudes.

But what were sunsets to us, with the wild excitement upon us of approaching the most renowned of cities! What cared


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 and joined the jovial songsters with all their might: Thus we chased away the sweet god of sleep, who seemed not in the least to relish the disharmonious notes of our jolly companions."

"Now the Lieutenant beckoned to the blithsome crew, and the clamorous noise was suddenly hushed in awful silence. It struck twelve o'clock, the sound of horns and the trampling of horses was heard at a distance. The peasants listened, their mouths wide open, and gazed at each other struck with chilly terror: No sound was heard, except the palpitating of their hearts, and here and there the chattering of teeth—all of them moved their lips as if praying ardently. The noise came nearer and nearer, and now it seemed to be in the castle. Again every thing was silent, but in an instant the former noise struck once more our listening ears, and the infernal hosts rushed by like lightning—the Lieutenant, the Baron and I darted through the passage leading to the gate, but the airy gen-


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 from troubling—although there is still a stretch of flat country and a supply of stagnant water in the shape of small lakes; I say this regretfully, but science is truth. I once had a nice little theory, that worked well in the Niger Delta, that you never had mosquitoes if you had a 4-knot current water supply; unless you bred the said mosquitoes for yourself, in tanks or barrels; because, said the theory, the larva got washed away down. But although the Ogowé has a 4-knot current twice over at Osamokita, and there are no mosquitoes; still there are those lakes in the forest at the back of it; so any one who can patch that theory up, and make it go again, is welcome to it. Again regarding mosquito distribution, there's a pretty solid fog of them from Kangwe to Arevooma, from Arevooma on to Lake Ncovi, and at Lake Ncovi they—but it's no use my writing down my opinion about mosquitoes in Lake Ncovi because no one will print it. When we left Ncovi, and got well into the forest, we missed them, and were no more troubled with them, until we got here to Agonjo, where there is not a 4-knot current; but I will not revert to that, and merely remark a peculiarity I have observed in mosquitoes since I have been so much in touch with them in Congo Français, and that is that they evidently feed on oil; several—many hundreds that I have crushed have left quite a pool of oil—I presume palm oil, but it may be animal fat. I should remark before leaving this subject that there are two schools in this district which quarrel much over the merits of their separate methods of destroying mosquitoes—the Flappists and the Crushers. I am a Crusher, holding it better to allow the vermin to get a hold, and his entire mind set on blood, and then to descend on him quietly, but firmly, with a finger; as for those heretics the Flappists they always hurt themselves, and frequently fail to bag their game, by their more showy methods.

I really thought that I was again getting a chance to secure a valuable specimen of spectra domestica—or the common domestic ghost—the first night in Agonjo. I held it to be the ghost of a carpenter, for it made a continuous sawing noise in the bamboo wall by the side of my bed, but again I was disappointed it was only the usual rat. This enterprising rodent indeed was a fellow collector, and had stolen the bladder off


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 advertising, choosing to release its first ever ad through Twitter.

 * Possible violations of state and federal labor law in Mr. Musk’s appropriation of Tesla employees. It is unclear whether Tesla employees were invited to work for Twitter or – either implicitly or explicitly – forced to do so and whether their existing employment contracts were respected. It is also unclear whether any Tesla employees refused to make the transition and whether their position was threatened or if they were fired. Despite Mr. Musk facing multiple lawsuits for illegally firing Twitter employees, Tesla’s Board has not announced any investigation into Mr. Musk’s treatment of Tesla employees, potentially shirking its duty to prevent the company from breaking the law.

In this same letter, I posed a series of questions to the Board to determine if it was properly addressing the corporate governance concerns posed by Mr. Musk’s dual CEO roles at Tesla and Twitter. To date, the Board has refused to provide answers to these important questions.

Concerns about Mr. Musk’s actions as Tesla CEO have only increased in recent months. In April 2023, a group of 17 major Tesla investors wrote an open letter to Tesla’s Board expressing concern “that the Board of Directors is failing to adequately represent the interests of Tesla’s shareholders.” The letter notes that Mr. Musk “appears to be distracted or overly focused on other ventures” and the Board’s “meager oversight” over his behavior is “jeopardizing [Tesla’s] long-term value.” Moreover, the letter notes the reported “close personal relationships” between Mr. Musk and several members of Tesla’s Board, as well as Board members’ “exceptionally high compensation,” expressing concern about the Board’s “objectivity, independence, and ability to prioritize the needs of Tesla and its shareholders.”

The group asked the Board to either limit Mr. Musk’s commitments or announce a Tesla CEO succession plan, and to remove directors with close ties to Mr. Musk from the Board. The letter also indicates the group’s belief that Mr. Musk’s actions have meaningfully harmed shareholders: as of April 3, 2023, nearly one year after Mr. Musk first disclosed his stake in Twitter, “Tesla had lost $582.4 billion in market capitalization.” Over that same period, Tesla’s reputation dropped from 12 to 62  among the top 100 most visible brands, falling “across all nine measured


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 of the novel and of the novelist in modern life comes in.

It is no new discovery that the novel, like the drama, is a powerful instrument of moral suggestion. This has been understood in England ever since there has been such a thing as a novel in England. This has been recognised equally by novelists, novel-readers, and the people who wouldn't read novels under any condition whatever. Richardson wrote deliberately for edification, and "Tom Jones" is a powerful and effective appeal for a charitable, and even indulgent, attitude towards loose-living men. But excepting Fielding and one or two other of those partial exceptions that always occur in the case of critical generalisations, there is a definable difference between the novel of the past and what I may call the modern novel. It is a difference that is reflected upon the novel from a difference in the general way of thinking. It lies in the fact that formerly there was a feeling of certitude about moral values and standards of conduct that is altogether absent to-day. It wasn't so much that men were agreed upon these things—about these things there have always been enormous divergences of opinion—as that men were emphatic, cocksure, and unteachable about whatever they did happen to believe to a degree that no longer obtains. This is the Balfourian age, and even religion seeks to establish itself on doubt. There were, perhaps, just as many differences in the past as there are now, but the outlines were harder—they were indeed so hard as to be almost, to our sense, savage. You might be a Roman Catholic, and in that case


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Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/346

 one of my bottles, and was determined to get it up into the roof whether the wall bamboos would let him or no. I helped him up with it, he holding on to his end while I poked the other up with a stick, and we got the thing done between us, and I hope he is happy.

One of these black trader factories is an exceedingly interesting place to stay at, for in these factories you are right down on the bed rock of the trade. On the Coast, for the greater part, the white traders are dealing with black traders, middle-men, who have procured their trade stuff from the bush natives, who collect and prepare it. Here, in the black trader factory, you see the first stage of the export part of the trade: namely the barter of the collected trade stuff between the collector and the middleman. I will not go into details regarding it. What I saw merely confirmed my opinion from my other experience, and this opinion had been further strengthened by what I had been seeing, during the previous months, while living among bush men collecting trade stuff; and that is that the native is not cheated; no, not even by a fellow African trader; and I will merely here pause to sing a pæan to a very unpopular class—the black middleman as he exists on the South West Coast. It is impossible to realise the gloom of the lives of these men in bush factories, unless you have lived in one. It is no use saying "they know nothing better and so don't feel it," for they do know several things better, being very sociable men, fully appreciative of the joys of a Coast town, and their aim, object and end in life is, in almost every case, to get together a fortune that will enable them to live in one, give a dance twice a week, card parties most nights, and dress themselves up so that their fellow Coast townsmen may hate them and their townswomen love them. From their own accounts of the dreadful state of trade; and the awful and unparalleled series of losses they have had, from the upsetting of canoes, the raids and robberies made on them and their goods by "those awful bush savages"; you would, if you were of a trustful disposition, regard the black trader with an admiring awe as the man who has at last solved the great commercial problem of how to keep a shop and live by the loss. Nay, not only live, but build for him-


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Page:Letter by Elizabeth Warren to the Securities and Exchange Commission requesting an investigation of Tesla, Inc.pdf/4

 attributes, with the biggest declines in the categories of character, trust, culture and ethics.” The Board has not released a public response to this investor letter.

On May 11, 2023, Mr. Musk stated that Twitter had hired a new CEO and that Mr. Musk’s role “will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.” The next day, Mr. Musk announced Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter. But this announcement does little to address the concerns of Mr. Musk’s dual role. According to Mr. Musk, Ms. Yaccarino “will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology.” As one former Twitter board member put it, Mr. Musk will be “running product and technology for a 100% software company,” leaving little responsibility for the CEO except maybe “not paying the vendors.” And should Mr. Musk change his mind about stepping down as CEO, there is nothing to stop him from firing Ms. Yaccarino and returning to the helm – because Twitter lacks a board of directors, so long as Mr. Musk retains majority ownership of the private company, he will remain “a dominant force.”

Unlike Twitter, Tesla is a public company listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. As such, it must have an independent board of directors whose role it is to “act on behalf of investors to maximize shareholder value … and guard against conflicts of interest.” But despite repeated calls to address the risks posed by Mr. Musk’s conflicting dual roles at Tesla and Twitter and his actions since acquiring Twitter, the Tesla Board has taken no apparent action to address concerns related to Mr. Musk and protect its shareholders. Whether the Tesla Board is upholding its fiduciary duty to shareholders is largely a question of state law. But for investors to enforce their rights under state law, they need full and fair disclosure of the relevant facts. The Board’s apparent lack of independence, combined with its inaction and incomplete disclosures, raise questions about possible violations of securities laws and exchange rules which fall under SEC’s jurisdiction.

 * 1. Potential Violations of Nasdaq Listing Rules

The SEC may open investigations to determine if any person or company has violated “the rules of a national securities exchange,” including Nasdaq. The SEC may bring action for violations of these rules if doing so is “necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of


text: Chapters on Jewish Literature/Chapter 1

title: Chapters on Jewish Literature/Chapter 1


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Page:Urantia Foundation v. Maaherra.pdf/8

 304(a), and on a Copyright Office regulation which provides the manner in which renewal registrations may be corrected, 37 C.F.R. § 201.5(b)(2)(iv), she argues that because the renewal certificate described the Foundation as the “proprietor of a work made for hire” rather than as the “proprietor of a composite work”, the renewal registration is not valid.

The regulation upon which Maaherra relies, provided in 1983: "Supplementary registration to correct a renewal claimant or basis of a claim in a basic renewal registration may be made only if the application for supplementary registration and fee are received in the Copyright Office within the statutory time limits for renewal. If the error or omission in a basic renewal registration is extremely minor, and does not involve the identity of the renewal claimant or the legal basis of the claim, supplementary registration may be made at any time. Supplementary registration is not appropriate to add a renewal claimant."

37 C.F.R. § 201.5(b)(2)(iv) (1983). The regulation would thus have permitted the Foundation to file a supplementary registration to correct its basic registration at any time during the renewal period, if the error was minor and did not “involve the identity of the renewal claimant or the legal basis for the claim.” Id. However, corrections to the “identity” of the claimant or to the “legal basis of the claim” could only have been made within the statutory time limits for renewal, which in this case would have expired December 31, 1983.

Maaherra claims that because the error the Foundation made in describing the nature of its proprietorship involves “the legal basis of the claim,” the error can no longer be corrected, and therefore, the Book was injected into the public domain in 1983. There are serious problems with this argument.

First, it is not at all clear that the regulation’s reference to the “legal basis of the claim” contemplates the identification of a particular type of proprietorship described in the first proviso of section 304(a). Given the structure of the statute, the general term “proprietor” was probably sufficient to identify the “legal basis” of the renewal claim in 1983.

Moreover, we have found no case that has ever held a renewal invalid for lack of an adequate description of the basis of the claim. The only cases in which renewals have been forfeited have involved renewals filed by the wrong claimant, not by someone describing the wrong type of proprietorship. The second proviso of section 304(a) establishes the priority to renewal rights for authors and their statutory heirs. There are cases holding renewal registrations under this proviso void, where the renewal was filed in the name of a person who was a member of the next succeeding class, when members of a priority class living at the time the renewal vested should have filed the renewal, but did not. See Nimmer § 9.05[D][1] at 9-85 (citing, inter alia, Marks Music Corp. v. Borst Music Pub. Co. Inc., 110 F.Supp. 913 (D.N.J.1953); Yardley v. Houghton Mifflin Co., 25 F.Supp. 361 (S.D.N.Y.1938), aff’d, 108 F.2d 28 (2d Cir.1939)). In such cases, however, in contrast to the situation here, the person filing for renewal was not statutorily entitled to renew under any theory; someone else was. See International Film Exch., Ltd. v. Corinth Films, Inc., 621 F.Supp. 631 (S.D.N.Y.1985) (rejecting renewal application because the renewal was filed in the name of a licensee, instead of being filed in the name of the author, or by the copyright proprietor). As we have seen, the Foundation was in fact a proper renewal claimant because it was the “proprietor” of the Book both in 1955 and in 1983.

Furthermore, even the requirement of accurate identification of the renewal claimant has not been rigidly enforced. In at least one case, the actual name of the claimant corporation was mistakenly stated in the renewal application, yet the infringement action was permitted to go forward. Bourne Co. v. Walt Disney Co., 25 U.S.P.Q.2d 1975, 1976 (S.D.N.Y.1992), aff’d on other grounds, 68 F.3d 621 (2d Cir.1995), ''cert. denied'', —517 [sic] U.S. —, 116 S.Ct. 1890, 135 L.Ed.2d 184 (1996). See also Nimmer, § 9.05[D][1] at 9-85–86, [sic] (favorably citing Bourne for refusing to cause a forfeiture of copyright based on “useless technicalities”).


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 you did not want to hear about Protestants, Turks, Infidels, except in tones of horror and hatred. You knew exactly what was good and what was evil. Your priest informed you upon these points, and all you needed in any novel you read was a confirmation, implicit or explicit, of these vivid rather than charming prejudices. If you were a Protestant you were equally clear and unshakable. Your sect, whichever sect you belonged to, knew the whole of truth and included all the nice people. It had nothing to learn in the world, and it wanted to learn nothing outside its sectarian convictions. The unbelievers, you know, were just as bad, and said their creeds with an equal fury—merely interpolating nots. People of every sort—Catholic, Protestant, Infidel, or what not—were equally clear that good was good and bad was bad, that the world was made up of good characters whom you had to love, help and admire, and of bad characters to whom one might, in the interests of goodness, even lie, and whom one had to foil, defeat and triumph over shamelessly at every opportunity. That was the quality of the times. The novel reflected this quality of assurance, and its utmost charity was to unmask an apparent villain and show that he or she was really profoundly and correctly good, or to unmask an apparent saint and show the hypocrite. There was no such penetrating and pervading element of doubt and curiosity—and charity, about the rightfulness and beauty of conduct, such as one meets on every hand to-day.

The novel-reader of the past, therefore, like the novel-reader of the more provincial parts of England


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Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 1.djvu/90

 tlemen were already out of sight, and we could see nothing, save a faint glimmering of some white horses: The mingled noise of their horns and of the trampling of their horses soon died away, the stillness of midnight swayed all around, and we returned to the court-yard."

"Our valiant crew was still fixed to the ground, seized with horror and astonishment: None of them were able to distinguish whether we were ghosts or their fellow adventurers; however, they recovered their spirits by degrees, and prepared to leave the residence of the infernal sportsmen."

"We left the castle, fully convinced that these nocturnal ramblers must be beings who were afraid of us, discharged our courageous troop, and went to rest."

"I awoke with the first ray of the morning sun, and roused the Baron and the Lieutenant; the latter seemed not to be inclined to fulfil his promise, being desirous to try his


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Page:Lucian (IA lucianlucas00collrich).pdf/53

Rh they cut your golden locks off your royal head, though you had a twenty-foot thunderbolt in your hand all the while. When does your High Mightiness mean to put a stop to all this which you are allowing to go on? How many conflagrations like Phaeton's, how many deluges like Deucalion's, does such a world as this deserve?

To pass now from public iniquities to my own case. After raising so many Athenians from poverty to wealth and greatness,—after helping every man that was in want—or rather, pouring my riches out wholesale to serve my friends,—when I have brought myself to poverty by this, these men utterly refuse to know me; men who used to honour me, worship me, hang on my very nod, now will not even look at me. If I meet any of them as I walk, they pass me without a glance, as though I were some old sepulchral stone fallen down through lapse of years: while those who see me in the distance turn into another path, as if I were some ill-omened vision which they feared to meet or look upon—I, who was so lately their benefactor and preserver!

So, in my distress, I have girt myself with skins, and retreated to this far corner; and here I dig the ground for four obols a day,—and talk philosophy to my spade and myself. One point I think I gain here; I shall no longer see the worthless in prosperity—for that were worse to bear than all. Now then, Son of Saturn and Rhea, wake up at last from this long deep slumber—for you've slept longer than Epimenides


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Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/347

 self an equivalent to a palatial residence, and keep up, not only it, but half a dozen wives, with a fine taste for dress every one of them. I am not of a trustful disposition and I accept those "losses" with a heavy discount, and know most of the rest of them have come out of my friend the white trader's pockets. Still I can never feel the righteous indignation that I ought to feel, when I see the black trader "down in a seaport town with his Nancy," &c., as Sir W. H. S. Gilbert classically says, because I remember those bush factories.

Mr. Glass, however, was not a trader who made a fortune by losing those of other people; for he had been many years in the employ of the firm. He had risen certainly to the high post and position charge of the Rembwé, but he was not down giddy-flying at Gaboon. His accounts of his experiences when he had been many years ago away up the still little known Nguni River, in a factory in touch with the lively Bakele, then in a factory among Fans and Igalwa on the Ogowé, and now among Fans and Skekiani on the Rembwé, were fascinating, and told vividly of the joys of first starting a factory in a wild district. The way in which your customers, for the first month or so, enjoyed themselves by trying to frighten you, the trader, out of your wits and goods, and into giving them fancy prices for things you were trading in, and for things no earthly use to you, or any one else! The trader's existence during this period is marked by every unpleasantness save dulness; from that he is spared by the presence of a mob of noisy, dangerous, thieving savages all over his place all day; invading his cook-house, to put some nastiness into his food as a trade charm; helping themselves to portable property at large; and making themselves at home to the extent of sitting on his dining-table. At night those customers proceed to sleep all over the premises, with a view to being on hand to start shopping in the morning. Woe betide the trader if he gives in to this, and tolerates the invasion, for there is no chance of that house ever being his own again; and in addition to the local flies, &c., on the table-cloth, he will always have several big black gentlemen to share his meals. If he raises prices, to tide over some extra row, he is a lost man; for the Africans can under-


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Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 9.pdf/399

 to-day, judged a novel by the convictions that had been built up in him by his training and his priest or his pastor. If it agreed with these convictions he approved; if it did not agree he disapproved—often with great energy. The novel, where it was not unconditionally banned altogether as a thing disturbing and unnecessary, was regarded as a thing subordinated to the teaching of the priest or pastor, or whatever director and dogma was followed. Its modest moral confirmations began when authority had completed its direction. The novel was good—if it seemed to harmonise with the graver exercises conducted by Mr. Chadband—and it was bad and outcast if Mr. Chadband said so. And it is over the bodies of discredited and disgruntled Chadbands that the novel escapes from its servitude and inferiority.

Now the conflict of authority against criticism is one of the eternal conflicts of humanity. It is the conflict of organisation against initiative, of discipline against freedom. It was the conflict of the priest against the prophet in ancient Judæa, of the Pharisee against the Nazarene, of the Realist against the Nominalist, of the Church against the Franciscan and the Lollard, of the Respectable Person against the Artist, of the hedge-clippers of mankind against the shooting buds. And to-day, while we live in a period of tightening and extending social organisation, we live also in a period of adventurous and insurgent thought, in an intellectual spring unprecedented in the world's history. There is an enormous criticism going on of the faiths upon which men's lives and associations are


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Page:Urantia Foundation v. Maaherra.pdf/9

 All of this strongly suggests that even if the Foundation can no longer correct the “work made for hire” description of its proprietorship claim on the renewal form, the Foundation’s renewal copyright is not invalid. There is, however, even more compelling authority for this result.

The case law is overwhelming that inadvertent mistakes on registration certificates do not invalidate a copyright and thus do not bar infringement actions, unless the alleged infringer has relied to its detriment on the mistake, or the claimant intended to defraud the Copyright Office by making the misstatement. See, e.g., Nimmer, § 7.20 at 7-201 and n. 6 (“[A] misstatement or clerical error in the registration application if unaccompanied by fraud will not invalidate the copyright or render the registration certificate incapable of supporting an infringement action.”),; [sic] S.O.S, Inc. v. Payday, 886 F.2d 1081 (9th Cir.1989); Harris v. Emus Records, 734 F.2d 1329 (9th Cir.1984) (citing to Burton, supra, and Urantia Foundation v. King, 194 U.S.P.Q. 171, 174–175 (C.D.Cal.1977)); Datastorm Technologies, Inc. v. Excalibur Communications, Inc., 888 F.Supp. 112 (N.D.Cal.1995); Gund, Inc. v. Swank, Inc., 673 F.Supp. 1233 (S.D.N.Y.1987); Craft v. Kobler, 667 F.Supp. 120 (S.D.N.Y.1987); Dynamic Solutions, Inc. v. Planning & Control, Inc., 646 F.Supp. 1329 (S.D.N.Y.1986); Alart Assocs.., [sic] Inc. v. Aptaker, 279 F.Supp. 268 (S.D.N.Y.1968), appeal dismissed, 402 F.2d 779 (2d Cir.1968).

We are aware that most of the cases applying a fraud or prejudice standard, and permitting infringement actions despite inaccuracies in registration, involve defects in original registration certificates rather than in renewals. Original registrations can be changed at any time during the original term of copyright, while, as discussed earlier, certain errors in the renewal registration of pre-1964 works, such as the Book, could only be corrected in the last year of the original term. 17 U.S.C. § 304(a) (1983); 37 C.F.R. § 201.5(b)(2)(iv) (1983). However, the reasoning of these cases does not turn on whether or not correction is possible. Indeed, in this circuit, a lead decision applying the fraud or prejudice standard, contains language strongly implying that this standard should apply across the board, regardless of whether the applicable statutes or regulations permit corrections. See Harris, supra, at 1335 (rejecting defendant’s contention that the work had entered into the public domain because of inaccuracies in the copyright registration, and noting that the 1909 Copyright Act did not contain a statutory or regulatory scheme providing opportunity for correction of mistakes in copyright registrations).

These cases generally do not require perfection, but instead base their analyses on principles of fair and non-formalistic administration of the copyright laws. See, e.g., Huk-a-Poo Sportswear, Inc. v. Little Lisa, Ltd., 74 F.R.D. 621 (S.D.N.Y.1977) (“This court is mindful of the policy that courts seek to preserve copyrights rather than invalidate them on the basis of minor defects in registration certificates.”); Craft, supra, at 125 (even though the copyright owner had not claimed “work for hire” on the certificate of registration, the court noted that “if the facts sustain his position and if it appears that the misstatement was inadvertent, little turns on the error; the copyright is not thereby invalidated, nor is the certificate of registration rendered incapable of supporting the action”).

Maaherra argues that the Foundation’s claim is nevertheless barred even under the holdings of these cases because the Foundation intended to defraud the Copyright Office when it stated it was the “proprietor of a work made for hire.” See Dynamic Solutions, supra, at 1341 (“Errors on the registration application do not affect plaintiff’s right to sue for infringement unless they are knowing and might have caused the Copyright Office to reject the application.”)). [sic] Maaherra asserts that the Foundation did not want to reveal to the Copyright Office that the “authors” were celestial beings because the Copyright Office would have rejected the application.

There is no merit to this contention. The Foundation deposited two copies of the Book with the Copyright Office. The Book clearly describes its own origin as having been created at the instance of: “Planetary celestial


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Page:Letter by Elizabeth Warren to the Securities and Exchange Commission requesting an investigation of Tesla, Inc.pdf/5

 investors.” Nasdaq rules require that a “majority of the board of directors must be comprised of Independent Directors,” meaning they must not be people who have a relationship which, “in the opinion of the Company's board of directors, would interfere with the exercise of independent judgment in carrying out the responsibilities of a director.” This important requirement exists so that shareholders can “have confidence that individuals serving as Independent Directors do not have a relationship with the listed Company that would impair their independence.” According to Nasdaq guidance, this obligation also gives the Tesla Board the “responsibility to make an affirmative determination that no such relationships exist.”

The composition of Tesla’s eight-person Board raises concerns about whether it is in violation of the majority independent director requirement. As the founder and CEO of Tesla, Mr. Musk exercises significant control over the day-to-day management of the company, describing himself as a “nano-manager” who “can’t find people to delegate to,” most recently instituting a policy requiring that all Tesla hires be personally approved by him. As discussed above, Mr. Musk has regularly used Tesla resources for his other ventures, including SpaceX and Twitter, and may even be a controlling shareholder of Tesla. Tesla’s own 10-K filings admit the company is “highly dependent” on Mr. Musk and that he “spends significant time with Tesla and is highly active in [its] management.” Mr. Musk has stated he “handpick[ed]” Tesla’s Chair Robyn Denholm and bragged that he “can just call for a shareholder vote and get anything done that [he] want[s].” Given Mr. Musk’s control over Tesla, any close relationship between a Board member and Mr. Musk might constitute a “relationship with the listed Company that would impair [the member’s] independence.”

Members of the Board with known ties to Mr. Musk or Tesla include Mr. Musk himself; Mr. Musk’s brother, Kimball Musk; Ira Ehrenpreis, a “longtime friend” of Mr. Musk who helped design his record-breaking compensation package and explored limiting the disclosure of its details to investors; James Murdoch, Mr. Musk’s friend of almost 20 years who vacations with


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Page:Lucian (IA lucianlucas00collrich).pdf/54

44 and blow your thunderbolt hot again, or heat it afresh in Ætna, and make it blaze lustily, and show a little righteous wrath, worthy of the Jove of younger days; unless, indeed, that be a true story which the Cretans tell, and you be dead and buried too.

Jupiter (in Olympus, disturbed by Timon's clamorous expostulations below). Who in the world, Mercury, is this fellow that's bawling so from Attica, down at the foot of Hymettus,—a perfect scarecrow, he looks, in a dirty goat-skin? Digging, I think he is, by his stooping posture. He's a very noisy impudent fellow. Some philosopher, I fancy, or he wouldn't use such blasphemous language.

Mercury. What do you say, father? don't you know Timon of Athens? He's the man who so often used to treat us with such magnificent sacrifices; that nouveau riche, you know, who used to offer whole hecatombs; at whose expense we were so splendidly entertained at the Diasia.

Jup. What a sad reverse of fortune! That fine, handsome, rich fellow, who had used to have such troops of friends round him! What has brought him to this?—so squalid and miserable, and having to dig for his bread, I suppose, by the way he drives his spade into the ground?

Mercury proceeds to inform his father that Timon's reckless generosity has reduced him to poverty, and that all the friends who shared his bounty have now


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Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 9.pdf/400

 based, and of every standard and rule of conduct. And it is inevitable that the novel, just in the measure of its sincerity and ability, should reflect and co-operate in the atmosphere and uncertainties and changing variety of this seething and creative time.

And I do not mean merely that the novel is unavoidably charged with the representation of this wide and wonderful conflict. It is a necessary part of the conflict. The essential characteristic of this great intellectual revolution amidst which we are living to-day, that revolution of which the revival and restatement of nominalism under the name of pragmatism is the philosophical aspect, consists in the reassertion of the importance of the individual instance as against the generalisation. All our social, political, moral problems are being approached in a new spirit, in an inquiring and experimental spirit, which has small respect for abstract principles and deductive rules. We perceive more and more clearly, for example, that the study of social organisation is an empty and unprofitable study until we approach it as a study of the association and inter-reaction of individualised human beings inspired by diversified motives, ruled by traditions, and swayed by the suggestions of a complex intellectual atmosphere. And all our conceptions of the relationships between man and man, and of justice and rightfulness and social desirableness, remain something misfitting and inappropriate, something uncomfortable and potentially injurious, as if we were trying to wear sharp-edged clothes made for a giant out of tin, until we bring them to the test and measure of realised individualities.


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Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/348

 stand prices going up, but never prices coming down; and time being no object, they will hold back their trade. Then the district is ruined, and the trader along with it, for he cannot raise the price he gets for the things he buys.

What that trader has got to do, is to be a "Devil man." They always kindly said they recognised me as one, which is a great compliment. He must betray no weakness, but a character which I should describe as a compound of the best parts of those of Cardinal Richelieu, Brutus, Julius Cæsar, Prince Metternich, and Mettzofante, the latter to carry on the native language part of the business; and he must cast those customers out, not only from his house; but from his yard; and adhere to the "No admittance except on business" principle. This causes a good deal of unpleasantness, and the trader's nights are now cheered by lively war-dances outside his stockade; the accompanying songs advertising that the customers are coming over the stockade to raid the store, and cut up the trader "into bits like a fish." Sometimes they do come—and then—finish; but usually they don't; and gradually settle down, and respect the trader greatly as "a Devil man"; and do business on sound lines during the day. Over the stockade at night, by ones and twos, stealing, they will come to the end of the chapter.

At Agonjo Mr. Glass, his wife, and the "Partant pour la Syrie" vocalist used to have to take it in turns to keep watch, because it was the habit of these local "children of nature" to sell a log or so of ebony during the day, and come and regain possession of it at night. They would then take it down to the next factory, and sell it there—similarly regaining it, and bringing it back, and re-selling it, and so on, da capo. Thereby it falls out that one man might live for quite a time on a few billets, with no exertion, or hard work, stealing being a beloved pastime—a kind of a sort of a game in which you only lose if you are found out.

Moonlight nights are fairly restful for the bush trader, but when it is inky black, or pouring with rain, he has got to be very much out and about, and particularly vigilant has he got to be on tornado nights—a most uncomfortable sort of weather to attend to business in, I assure you.


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 supervisors [who initiated] those petitions that resulted in the granting of the mandates making possible the series of revelations of which this presentation is a part.” We conclude that there has been no fraud on the Foundation’s part, and no prejudicial reliance on Maaherra’s part.

We therefore hold that the Foundation’s renewal copyright is valid, and that Maaherra infringed it.

For the foregoing reasons, the decision of the district court is REVERSED and the case REMANDED for further proceedings on damages.


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Page:Lucian (IA lucianlucas00collrich).pdf/55

Rh deserted him. He has left the ungrateful city in disgust, and hired himself out as a day-labourer in the country. Jupiter, however, is not going to follow the example of mankind, and neglect the man from whom, in his day of prosperity, he has received so many favours. He is sorry that his case has hitherto escaped his notice; but really the noise and clamour those Athenians make with all their philosophical disputes has so disgusted him, that for some time he has not turned his eyes in their direction. "Go down to him at once," he says to Mercury, "and take Plutus with you, with a good supply of money; and let Plutus take care not to leave him again so easily as he did before. As for these ungrateful friends of his, they shall have their deserts, as soon as ever I can get my lightning mended. I broke two of my strongest bolts the other day, launching them in a passion against Anaxagoras the Sophist, who was teaching his followers that we gods were an utter impossibility in the nature of things. I missed him (Pericles put his hand in the way), and the lightning struck the temple of Castor, I am sorry to say, and destroyed it; but my bolt was all but shivered itself against the


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Page:Letter by Elizabeth Warren to the Securities and Exchange Commission requesting an investigation of Tesla, Inc.pdf/6

 him; and J.B. Straubel, a former Tesla executive whose election to the Board in May of this year was opposed by both proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis and an investor group over concerns about Straubel’s role as a “company insider.”

The investor group noted that Mr. Straubel’s election means “at least five of [the Board’s] eight members lack independence.” Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Ehrenpreis also serve on Tesla’s audit and compensation committees, respectively, both of which are generally required by Nasdaq rules to be composed of independent directors. Despite repeated calls from its shareholders for independence, the Board has continued to appoint and retain members who have relationships to the company, either directly or through Mr. Musk, that may impede their independent decision-making.

These close relationships may explain the Board’s persistent inability or unwillingness to address the concerns posed by Mr. Musk’s actions. In a letter to Tesla in 2020, the SEC told the Board it had “abdicated the duties required of it” by failing to enforce a court-ordered policy requiring Mr. Musk’s tweets be preapproved by company lawyers “despite repeated violations by Mr. Musk.” In December of 2022, Mr. Musk sold nearly $3.6 billion of Tesla shares less than a month before the company announced fourth-quarter vehicle deliveries were significantly below the forecasts it had provided to investors. Tesla shares plummeted by over $50 the following day, dropping the value of the shares Mr. Musk sold by $1.2 billion. In an earnings call in April of this year, Mr. Musk explained that Tesla receives a “daily real-time update of how many cars were ordered yesterday, how many cars were produced yesterday;” that this data “does not have latency;” and touted that he is “not sure there’s any company on Earth that has better real-time data than Tesla, except maybe SpaceX Starlink.” If Tesla’s exceptional real-time data allowed Mr. Musk to see the shortcomings in vehicle deliveries and sell his shares before the company publicly disclosed that information to investors, that would constitute insider trading under Rule 10b5-1. Yet there is no indication that the Board attempted to stop this problematic sale.


text: Urantia Foundation v. Maaherra (114 F.3d 955)


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 The factory at Agonjo was typical; the house is a fine specimen of the Igalwa style of architecture; mounted on poles above the ground; the space under the house being used as a store for rubber in barrels, and ebony in billets; thereby enabling the trader to hover over these precious possessions, sleeping and waking, like a sitting hen over her eggs.

Near to the house are the sleeping places for the beach hands, and the cook-house. In front, in a position commanded by the eye from the verandah, and well withdrawn from the stockade, are great piles of billets of red bar wood. The whole of the clean, sandy yard containing these things, and divers others, is surrounded by a stout stockade, its main face to the river frontage, the water at high tide lapping its base, and at low tide exposing in front of it a shore of black slime. Although I cite this factory as a typical factory of a black trader, it is a specimen of the highest class, for, being in connection with Messrs. Hatton and Cookson it is well kept up and stocked. Firms differ much in this particular. Messrs. Hatton and Cookson, like Messrs. Miller Brothers in the Bights, take every care that lies in their power of the people who serve them, down to the Kruboys working on their beaches, giving ample and good rations and providing good houses. But this is not so with all firms on the Coast. I have seen factories belonging to the Swedish houses beside which this factory at Agonjo is a palace, although those factories are white man factories, and the unfortunate white men in them are expected by these firms to live on native chop—an expectation the Agents by no means realise, for they usually die. Black hands, however, do not suffer much at the hands of such firms, for the Swedish Agents are a quiet, gentlemanly set of men, in the best sense of that much misused term, and they do not employ on their beaches such a staff of black helpers as the English houses, so the two or three Kruboys on a starvation beach can fairly well fend for themselves, for there is always an adjacent village, and in that village there are always chickens, and on the shore crabs, and in the river fish, and for the rest of his diet the Kruboy flirts with the local ladies.

Although, as I have laid down, the bush factory at its best


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 This pattern of inaction and the Board members’ conflicts of interest call into question whether it is truly majority independent, as required by Nasdaq rules. The SEC should determine whether the Board is in fact independent, and if not, take whatever action is necessary to protect Tesla investors and the public.

 * 2. Potential Violations of SEC Disclosure Requirements Regarding Board Independence

The Board’s ties to Mr. Musk and Tesla also raise questions about its compliance with disclosure requirements about director independence. Regulation S-K governs how companies should disclose the non-financial statement portions of registration statements, periodic reports, and other filings under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Item 407 of that regulation requires that a company identify each director who is independent according to the relevant stock exchange standards. For each independent director, the company must disclose “any transactions, relationships or arrangements … that were considered by the board of directors under the applicable independence definitions in determining that the director is independent.” These disclosures “must be provided in such detail as is necessary to fully describe the nature of the transactions, relationships or arrangements.”

Tesla’s 14A proxy statement from April of this year states that its Board determined six of its eight directors, with the exception of Mr. Musk and his brother Kimball, to be independent. In two sentences, the Board notes it considered certain members’ “minority investments in certain companies or investment funds” involving other Tesla directors or with which Tesla has relationships and concluded that “none of these investments are material so as to impede the exercise of independent judgment.” Although Item 404 of Regulation S-K only requires disclosure of “material” transactions with all directors, Item 407 requires disclosure of any transactions, relationships, or arrangements with independent directors. Tesla cannot avoid disclosure by claiming independent directors’ transactions, relationships, and arrangements are not material. If Tesla failed to disclose in adequate detail all such relationships between each independent director and Mr. Musk or Tesla – several of which have been identified above and do not appear to be referenced in Tesla’s proxy statement – that the Board considered in determining director independence, this would amount to a violation of Item 407.


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 is a place, as Mr. Tracey Tupman would say, more fitted for a wounded heart than for one still able to feast on social joys, it is a luxurious situation for a black trader compared to the other form of trading he deals with—that of travelling among the native villages in the bush. This has one hundred times the danger, and a thousand times the discomfort, and is a thoroughly unhealthy pursuit. The journeys these bush traders make are often remarkable, and they deserve great credit for the courage and enterprise they display. Certainly they run less risk of death from fever than a white man would; but, on the other hand, their colour gives them no protection; and their chance of getting murdered is distinctly greater; and also the white governmental powers cannot revenge their death, in the way they would the death of a white man, for these murders usually take place away in some forest region, in a district no white man has ever penetrated; and when the account of it reaches the main trading station, or the sea coast town, to whom the man belongs—for many of them are not attached to any factory, but trading on their own accounts—it is usually in the form of the statement that So-and-so died of a disease. The relatives of the deceased never believe this, but the Government naturally feel disinclined to start off on a highly expensive expedition; which is next to certain in the bargain to cost a white man who goes with it his life; on a month or so's march, through trackless swamp and bush; on the off chance of finding out at the end of their quest that So and so did really die of a disease; or that the village where he died is utterly deserted; the natives on hearing of their approach having gone for a pic-nic in the surrounding forest.

You will naturally ask how it is that so many of these men do survive "to lead a life of sin" as a missionary described to me their Coast town life to be. This question struck me as requiring explanation. The result of my investigations, and the answers I have received from the men themselves, show that there is a reason why the natives do not succumb every time to the temptation to kill the trader, and take his goods, and this is twofold: firstly, all trade in West Africa follows definite routes, even in the wildest parts of it; and so a village


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 : '''3. Potential Violations of SEC Rules Regarding Disclosure of Related Party Transactions'''

The actions of Mr. Musk and the Board since his takeover of Twitter also raise questions about whether the Board has disclosed sufficient details as required by law about related party transactions between Board members and Mr. Musk and his other ventures. As noted above, Mr. Musk used “more than 50 of his trusted Tesla employees” to work on his Twitter takeover, including Tesla’s Chief Information Officer and several senior staff. It is of paramount importance to Tesla shareholders that the Board properly disclose the details of these transactions and ensure that they provide sufficient benefit to Tesla, including a calculation of the full costs – including the costs to Tesla of distracted employees – that they have incurred.

If the Board members were not aware of this use of Tesla resources, it would represent a failure of corporate oversight. If they were aware, it represents a failure to disclose information relevant to investors. Item 404 of Regulation S-K requires public companies to disclose any transactions involving the company where “the amount involved exceeds $120,000, and in which any related person had or will have a direct or indirect material interest.” The company must provide details of the transaction, including any other information “that is material to investors in light of the circumstances.” Though the dollar value of Mr. Musk’s use of Tesla employees for his takeover of Twitter remains unknown, it is likely – given that it included dozens of employees – that it exceeded $120,000. But Tesla has not clearly disclosed – or not disclosed at all – the details of these transactions in its filings with the SEC. The company stated in its May 2023 proxy statement that “Twitter is party to certain commercial and support agreements with Tesla. Under these agreements, Twitter incurred expenses of approximately $1.0 million in the aggregate in 2022 and $0.4 million in 2023 through February.” It is not clear what this disclosure refers to or what it means.

 * 4. Potential Violations of SEC Rule 10b-5 Regarding Code of Ethics

Rule 10b-5 makes it “unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, … [t]o make any untrue statement of a material fact … in connection with the purchase or sale of any security.” This applies to “any information released to the public.” Item 406 of Regulation S-K requires the disclosure of any code of ethics adopted by the company that applies to its CEO, which must be


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 far away in the forest, but on the trade route, knows, that as a general rule twice a year, a trader will appear to purchase its rubber and ivory. If he does not appear somewhere about the expected time, that village gets uneasy. The ladies are impatient for their new clothes; the gentlemen half wild for want of tobacco; and things coming to a crisis, they make inquiries for the trader down the road, one village to another, and then, if it is found that a village has killed the trader, and stolen all his goods, there is naturally a big palaver, and things are made extremely hot, even for equatorial Africa, for that village by the tobaccoless husbands of the clothesless wives. Herein lies the trader's chief safety, the village not being an atom afraid, or disinclined to kill him, but afraid of their neighbouring villages, and disinclined to be killed by them. But the trader is not yet safe. There is still a hole in his armour, and this is only to be stopped up in one way, namely, by wives; for you see although the village cannot safely kill him, and take all his goods, they can still safely let him die of a disease, and take part of them, passing on sufficient stuff to the other villages to keep them quiet. Now the most prevalent disease in the African bush comes out of the cooking pot, and so to make what goes into the cooking pot—which is the important point, for earthen pots do not in themselves breed poison—safe and wholesome, you have got to have some one who is devoted to your health to attend to the cooking affairs, and who can do this like a wife? So you have a wife—one in each village up the whole of your route. I know myself one gentleman whose wives stretch over 300 miles of country, with a good wife base in a Coast town as well. This system of judiciously conducted alliances, gives the black trader a security nothing else can, because naturally he marries into influential families at each village, and all his wife's relations on the mother's side regard him as one of themselves, and look after him and his interests. That security can lie in women, especially so many women, the so-called civilised man may ironically doubt, but the security is there, and there only, and on a sound basis, for remember the position of a travelling trader's wife in a village is a position that gives the lady prestige, the discreet husband


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 posted on the company’s website. Tesla’s disclosed code of ethics requires that the CEO and all senior officials bring to the attention of the Disclosure Committee any information that “affects the disclosures made by Tesla in its public filings,” and to the attention of the Audit Committee any information concerning “any actual or apparent conflicts of interest between personal and professional relationships” or “evidence of a material violation of the securities or other laws.” The Board must determine “appropriate actions to be taken in the event of violations” of this code of conduct. Despite Mr. Musk’s clearly documented conflicts of interest, appropriation of Tesla resources for Twitter, and possible violations of labor laws arising from his takeover of Twitter, the Tesla Board has taken no obvious action. The resulting lack of enforcement of Tesla’s publicly disclosed CEO code of ethics may constitute an “untrue statement” under Rule 10b-5 about the ethics standards that Tesla has publicly promised investors to uphold.

Mr. Musk purchased Twitter and took the company private, and as such, he can run that company as he sees fit – consistent, of course, with relevant federal and state laws. But Tesla is publicly owned, and Mr. Musk and the Board have responsibilities to shareholders and the public in their management of the company. Mr. Musk’s personal wealth – and his personal relationships with Board members – do not shield him or the Tesla Board from meeting basic SEC governance and disclosure rules. The concerns about Mr. Musk’s actions as Tesla CEO since his purchase of Twitter and the Board’s failure to address or disclose potential risks related to them raise obvious questions about Tesla’s compliance with SEC rules and regulations. I am therefore asking the SEC to open an investigation into Tesla to ensure that the actions of Mr. Musk and the Tesla Board have not violated securities laws.


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 showing little favours to her family and friends, if she asks for them when he is with her; and then she has not got the bother of having a man always about the house, and liable to get all sorts of silly notions into his head if she speaks to another gentleman, and then go and impart these notions to her with a cutlass, or a kassengo, as the more domestic husband, I am assured by black ladies, is prone to.

You may now, I fear, be falling into the other adjacent error—from the wonder why any black trader survives, namely, into the wonder why any black trader gets killed, with all these safeguards, and wives. But there is yet another danger, which no quantity of wives, nor local jealousies avail to guard him through. This danger arises from the nomadic habits of the bush tribes, notably the Fan. For when a village has made up its mind to change its district, either from having made the district too hot to hold it, with quarrels with neighbouring villages; or because it has exhausted the trade stuff, i.e. rubber and ivory in reach of its present situation; or because some other village has raided it, and taken away all the stuff it was saving to sell to the black trader; it resolves to give itself a final treat in the old home, and make a commercial coup at one fell swoop. Thus when the black trader turns up with his boxes of goods, it kills him, has some for supper, smokes the rest, and takes it and the goods, and departs to found new homes in another district.

The bush trade I have above sketched is the bush trade with the Fans. In those districts on the southern banks of the Ogowé the main features of the trade, and the trader's life are the same, but the details are more intricate, for the Igalwa trader from Lembarene, Fernan Vaz, or Njole, deals with another set of trading tribes, not first hand with the collectors. The Fan villages on the trade routes may, however, be regarded as trade depots, for to them filters the trade stuff of the more remote villages, so the difference is really merely technical, and in all villages alike the same sort of thing occurs.

The Igalwa or M'pongwe trader arrives with the goods he has received from the white trader, and there are great rejoicing and much uproar as his chests and bundles and demijohns are brought up from the canoe. And presently, after a great


text: Letter by Elizabeth Warren to the Securities and Exchange Commission requesting an investigation of Tesla, Inc.


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 deal of talk, the goods are opened. The chiefs of the village have their pick, and divide this among the principal men of the village, who pay for it in part with their store of collected rubber or ivory, and take the rest on trust, promising to collect enough rubber to pay the balance on the next visit of the trader. Thereby the trader has a quantity of debts outstanding in each village, liable to be bad debts, and herein lies his chief loss. Each chief takes a certain understood value in goods as a commission for himself—nyeno—giving the trader, as a consideration for this, an understood bond to assist him in getting in the trust granted to his village. This nyeno he utilises in buying trade stuff from villages not on the trade route. Among the Fans the men who have got the goods stand by with these to trade for rubber with the general public and bachelors of the village, in a way I will presently explain. In tribes like Ajumbas, Adooma, &c., the men having the goods travel off, as traders, among their various bush tribes, similarly paying their nyeno, and so by the time the goods reach the final producing men, only a small portion of them is left, but their price has necessarily risen. Still it is quite absurd for a casual white traveller, who may have dropped in on the terminus of a trade route, to cry out regarding the small value the collector (who is often erroneously described as the producer, giving a false "won-by-the-sweat-of-his-brow" halo to him) gets for his stuff, compared to the price it fetches in Europe. For before it even reaches the factory of the Coast Settlement, that stuff has got to keep a whole series of traders. It appears at first bad that this should be the case, but the case it is along the west coast of the continent save in the districts commanded by the Royal Niger company, who, with courage and enterprise, have pushed far inland, and got in touch with the great interior trade routes—a performance which has raised in the breasts of the Coast trader tribes who have been supplanted, a keen animosity, which like most animosity in Africa, is not regardful of truth. The tribes that have had the trade of the Bight of Biafra passing through their hands have been accustomed, according to the German Government who are also pressing inland, to make seventy-five per cent. profit on it, and they resent being deprived of this. A good deal is to


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 be said in favour of their views; among other things that the greater part of the seaboard districts of West Africa, I may say every part from Sierra Leone to Cameroon, is structurally incapable of being self-supporting under existing conditions. Below Cameroon, on my beloved South-west coast, which is infinitely richer than the Bight of Benin, rich producing districts come down to the sea in most places until you reach the Congo; but here again the middleman is of great use to the interior tribes, and if they do have to pay him seventy-five per cent, serve them right. They should not go making wife palaver, and blood palaver all over the place to such an extent that the inhabitants of no village, unless they go en masse, dare take a ten mile walk, save at the risk of their lives, in any direction, so palaver no live.

We will now enter into the reason that induces the bush man to collect stuff to sell among the Fans, which is the expensiveness of the ladies in the tribe. A bush Fan is bound to marry into his tribe, because over a great part of the territory occupied by them there is no other tribe handy to marry into; and a Fan residing in villages in touch with other tribes, has but little chance of getting a cheaper lady. For there is, in the Congo Français and the country adjacent to the north of it (Batanga), a regular style of aristocracy which may be summarised firstly thus: All the other tribes look down on the Fans, and the Fans look down on all the other tribes. This aristocracy has sub-divisions, the M'pongwe of Gaboon are the upper circle tribe; next come the Benga of Corisco; then the Bapoka; then the Banaka. This system of aristocracy is kept up by the ladies. Thus a M'pongwe lady would not think of marrying into one of the lower tribes, so she is restricted, with many inner restrictions, to her own tribe. A Benga lady would marry a M'pongwe, or a Benga, but not a Banaka, or Bapoka; and so on with the others; but not one of them would marry a Fan. As for the men, well of course they would marry any lady of any tribe, if she had a pretty face, or a good trading connection, if they were allowed to: that's just man's way. To the south-cast the Fans are in touch with the Achille, Bakele, Dakele, practically one and the same tribe and a tribe


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 that has much in common with the Fan, but who differ from them in getting on in a very friendly way with the little dwarf people, the Matimbas, or Watwa, or Akkoa: people the Fans cannot abide. With these Achille the Fan can intermarry, but there is not much advantage in so doing, as the price is equally high, but still marry he must.

A young Fan man has to fend for himself, and has a scratchy kind of life of it, aided only by his mother until—if he be an enterprising youth—he is able to steal a runaway wife from a neighbouring village, or if he is a quiet and steady young man, until he has amassed sufficient money to buy a wife. This he does by collecting ivory and rubber and selling it to the men who have been allotted goods by the chief of the village, from the consignment brought up by the black trader. He supports himself meanwhile by, if the situation of his village permits, fishing and selling the fish, and hunting and killing game in the forest. He keeps steadily at it in his way, reserving his roysterings until he is settled in life. A truly careful young man does not go and buy a baby girl


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 cheap, as soon as he has got a little money together; but works and saves on until he has got enough to buy a good, tough widow lady, who, although personally unattractive, is deeply versed in the lore of trade, and who knows exactly how much rubbish you can incorporate in a ball of india rubber, without the white trader, or the black bush factory trader, instantly detecting it. The bush travelling trader has, in certain of the more savage districts, to take rubber without making an examination of it; that would hurt the sensitive feelings of his Fan friends. But then in these districts he carefully keeps the price low to allow for this. When the Fan young man has married his wife, in a legitimate way on the cash system, he takes her round to his relations, and shows her off; and they make little presents to help the pair set up housekeeping. But the young man cannot yet settle down, for his wife will not allow him to. She is not going to slave herself to death doing all the work of the house, &c., and so he goes on collecting, and she preparing, trade stuff, and he grows rich enough to buy other wives—some of them young children, others widows, no longer necessarily old. But it is not until he is well on in life that he gets sufficient wives, six or seven. For it takes a good time to get enough rubber to buy a lady, and he does not get a grip on the ivory trade until he has got a certain position in the village, and plantations of his own which the elephants can be discovered raiding, in which case a percentage of the ivory taken from the herd is allotted to him. Now and again he may come across a dead elephant, but that is of the nature of a windfall; and on rubber and ebony he has to depend during his early days. These he changes with the rich men of his village for a very peculiar and interesting form of coinage—bikĕi—little iron imitation axe-heads which are tied up in bundles called ntet, ten going to one bundle, for with bikĕi must the price of a wife be paid. You cannot do so with rubber or ivory, or goods. These bikĕi pass, however, as common currency among the Fans, for other articles of trade as well, but I do not think they will pass bikĕi out of the tribe. Possibly no one else will take this form of change. Thousands of these bikĕi, done up into ntets, go to the price of a wife. I was much interested in this coin-


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 age-equivalent, and found out all I could regarding it, but there is plenty more to be found out, and I hope the next voyager among the Fans will keep his eye on it. You do not find bikĕi close down to Libreville, among the Fans who are there in a semi-civilised state, or more properly speaking in a state of disintegrating culture. You must go for bush. I thought I saw in bikĕi a certain resemblance in underlying idea with the early Greek coins I have seen at Cambridge, made like the fore-parts of cattle; and I have little doubt that the articles of barter among the Fans before the introduction of the rubber, ebony, and ivory trades, which in their districts are comparatively recent, were iron implements. For the Fans are good workers in iron; and it would be in consonance with well-known instances among other savage races in the matter of stone implements, that these things, important of old, should survive, and be employed in the matter of such an old and important affair as marriage. They thus become ju-ju; and indeed all West African legitimate marriage, although appearing to the casual observer a mere matter of barter, is never solely such, but always has ju-ju in it.

We may as well here follow out the whole of the domestic life of the Fan, now we have got him married. His difficulty does not only consist in getting enough bikĕi together but in getting a lady he can marry. No amount of bikĕi can justify a man in marrying his first cousin, or his aunt; and as relationship among the Fans is recognised with both his father and his mother, not as among the Igalwa with the latter's blood relations only, there are an awful quantity of aunts and cousins about from whom he is debarred. But when he has surmounted his many difficulties, and dodged his relations, and married, he is seemingly a better husband than the man of a more cultured tribe. He will turn a hand to anything, that does not necessitate his putting down his gun outside his village gateway. He will help chop firewood, or goat's chop, or he will carry the baby with pleasure, while his good lady does these things; and in bush villages, he always escorts her so as to be on hand in case of leopards, or other local unpleasantnesses. When inside the village he will lay down his gun, within handy reach, and build the house, tease out fibre to


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 fortune once more, and to hide himself either in the court-yard, or before the gate: When he saw that we would not stay any longer, he postponed the execution of his design to a future time, and followed our example."

"We left our inn at six o'clock, the morning was gloomy and rainy, the wind swept furiously over the heath, and drove the black clouds still closer and closer together; after a few minutes we entered the Black Forrest.—Looking out of the coach, I saw the Lieutenant and his servant turn to the left, towards a brook, where we beheld an odd phænomenon.—A reverend old man was sitting there, and reading in a large book; bewildered in profound meditation, he seemed to take no notice of the howling storm, and not to be sensible of the rain rushing down in large drops upon his uncovered head, the tempest was sporting with his reverend grey locks, and the rain beating in his face, yet he did not stir—His long brown robe seemed to de-


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Author:Edgar Thomas Gleeson

As editor

 * San Francisco Chronicle
 * San Francisco Call

title: Author:Edgar Thomas Gleeson