Plagiarism Punished

Robert A. Carter, 32-year-old hack writer of Larchmont, N. Y., hit upon a sure-fire plan for getting stories published and paid for. Unwilling to risk the unsure rewards of grinding out adventure tales for paper pulp magazines, mailing and re-mailing them to apathetic editors, he decided to model his compositions after successful stories already printed. Not only did he set about copying them as to sense, but as to content, letter perfect.

Appreciative Plagiarist Carter conned periodicals, selected a daring yarn from Air Trails, fiction monthly. Last July, he sold it, retyped under the name "Fortune Flying," to Fiction House, Inc., Manhattan publishers of the magazine Wings. By similar cozenage he had managed to extract $1,100 from the company.

All went well until the publishers of Air Trails called Wings' attention to the fact that it was reprinting copyrighted fiction. The mulcted monthly immediately ordered Plagiarist Carter's arrest. After his apprehension, it was discovered that fiction filching was the most remunerative, but not the exclusive manner of his making a living. Two Manhattan hotels had $850 worth of bad bills against him.

Convicted on the charge of petty larceny, Plagiarist Carter was sentenced to serve not less than six months, nor more than three years in the penitentiary.