[Sterling Heilig, American journalist.] Typed Letter Signed ('Sterling Heilig.') to Fleet Street journalist 'A. T. Q. C.', discussing his 'business of writing sensational letters to the American Sunday papers' and 'cribbing' (plagiarism).

1p, 4to. On leaf of aged, worn and creased cartridge paper. Addressed to 'A. T. Q. C., | Care of The Editor of | The Speaker, 115, Fleet Street, E.C., London.' An interesting letter, touching on English and American journalistic practice, 'sensational' copy, plagiarism and fin-de-siècle Paris. The context is not entirely clear: one reading is that the recipient reported on or reproduced in the Fleet Street newspaper the Speaker one of Heilig's 'sensational letters to the American Sunday papers', only to have it 'cribbed' by Pearson's Weekly. Heilig begins: 'Dear Sir, | I was so amused to compare your own text with that of your robber's, in a recent number of The Speaker, enclosed. In the one case it was a stolen ruby or flute or piano or [spade?]. In the present it is some stolen skeletons. My business of writing sensational letters to the American Sunday papers does not hold me to any crazy accuracy. The editors trust me, they allow me to paint the lily.' He explains that 'In the Cabaret du Neant there are really no skeletons sitting about, or, at most, one in miniature upon a shelf. I thought there ought to be skeletons sitting around, so I put them in.' He explains that 'The "P. W. man", going towards the Montmartre hill (in full Montmartre!) saw these skeletons "lounging on benches" and some which stood about and snapped their jaws a frequent intervals.' He explains that another passage 'has no place in the patter of the show. I took it bodily from their first advertising sheet, a journal called "La Mort".' He begins the final paragraph by explaining that he knows 'little of London and nothing of Pearson's Weekly', but that it has occurred to him that 'there may be something even yet more amusing behind their offers of twenty guineas etc.' He believes that 'one of the uses of these offers is to give the editors a screen behind which to protect themselves from even the appearance of evil. They can always say: "The thing was sent in to us. We regret it." Nevertheless I fancy the cribbing is done regularly in their own offices, by paid clerks.'