It is, then, in the republication of foreign works that our publishers ought to find an element of certainty, which cannot appertain to the publication of original and untried productions. But it is precisely here that chaos reigns. In the issue of native works, there is but a single uncertainty; in the republication of foreign, there are many. No man knows what his rights are; nor whether he has any rights; nor whether there _are_ any rights; nor, if he has rights, whether they will be respected. This chaos has taken to itself the pleasant and delusive name of "Courtesy of the Trade." Before the "reign of law" is established in any province of human affairs, we generally see men feeling their way to it, trying to find something else that will answer the purpose, endeavoring to reduce the chaos of conflicting claims to some kind of rule. The publishers of the United States have been doing this for many years, and the result is the unwritten code called the Courtesy of the Trade,--a code defective in itself, with neither judge to expound it, jury to decide upon it, nor sheriff to execute it. This code consisted at first of one rule,--If a publisher issues a foreign work, no other American publisher shall issue it. But it often happened that two or three publishers began or desired to begin the printing of the same book. To meet this and other cases, other laws were added, until at present the code, as laid down by the rigorists, consists of the following rules:-- 1. If a publisher issues an edition of a foreign work, he has acquired an exclusive right to it for a period undefined. 2. If a publisher is the first to announce his intention to publish a foreign work, that announcement gives him an exclusive right to publish it. 3. If a publisher has already issued a work of a foreign author, he has acquired thereby an exclusive right to the republication of all subsequent works by the same author. 4. The purchase of advance sheets for publication in a periodical gives a publisher the exclusive right to publish the same in any other form. 5. All and several of these rights may be bought and sold, like any other kind of property.