Chapter XVIII…

Chapter XVIII

HANDBILLS, INSCRIPTIONS, ETC.

Under this head it is our intention to give some slight insight into peculiarities of a kind of advertising unconnected with newspapers, and independent of any of the subjects treated in preceding chapters. We set forth with a great variety of handbills, which seemed almost too extensive for use in this volume; but we have already got rid of so many that the task of disposal is considerably lightened--so lightened, indeed, by the absorption of many of the most characteristic into preceding pages, that by comparison with the original collection our present supply seems rather meagre. It will doubtless, however, be found sufficient for the requirements of readers. We have already given an outline of the history of advertising by means of bills and posters, and have referred to the gradual growth of the system of “billing” until it has attained its present proportions. This system, though regarded by the Board of Works as very objectionable, is far pleasanter than that adopted twenty years ago, when every billsticker considered it his bounden duty to overstick the placards of opponents, and when nothing but a long course of education, or a most vivid imagination, would enable the passer-by to read what was upon the dead walls and hoardings. The Board of Works certainly took the initiative at the wrong time--at the time when improvement was vast and apparent to every one; but as it failed in its object, we may consider that public opinion has admitted the improvement, and no longer regards wall-advertising as a nuisance. The Board doubtless started on the idea at a time when placarding was a most decided scandal, but it--like most other committees--took so long to bring the idea to perfection, that the scandal had abolished itself long before the Board was ready to abolish it. Having already entered into full particulars as to the modes formerly adopted, and contrasted them with those in use at the present time, individual efforts at illuminating the public mind will now be found amply sufficient for our purpose. Some of these are, as all the world knows, extremely funny on account of the vagueness of the writers, and in that particular resemble many of those we have instanced from the columns of newspapers. A very few examples of this kind will suffice, and will pave the way for the heavier material. One of the best of those inscriptions, the comicality of which is founded upon ignorance, appeared in 1821, and was posted up by order of Lord Camden in that portion of the county of Kent which called him owner. It said:--

Notice is hereby given, that the Marquis of Camden (on account of the backwardness of the harvest) will not shoot himself, nor any of his tenants, till the 14th of September.

We don’t suppose that the Marquis had anything to do with the actual wording of the notice, but he has always been identified with it, and doubtless was cruelly badgered about it at the time. Another lordly notice of a similar kind appeared a few years back at Osterly Park, near Brentford, the seat of the Earl of Jersey, which gave the public this information: “Ten shillings reward.--Any person found trespassing on these lands or damaging these fences on conviction will receive the above reward. Dogs poisoned.” Somebody once said that nobody expects to find education or ability in a lord, but that is because his household are expected to fulfil his duties properly. Lords would seem in imminent danger of having to pick up a little scholarship, and use it in the interest of their dependants. If so, polo and pigeon-shooting will languish, and West-End night-schools may become fashionable. But getting away from the aristocracy, and turning our attention to the other side of the social sphere, we don’t find matters anyway improved, if we are to judge by the specimens of literary ability which now and then address themselves to the curious pedestrian. In Lambeth the latter might some short time back have been terrified by an announcement in a baker’s shop, which informed all whom it might concern that vitals were baked there. Not so terrible, but more comical, is the following, which is copied from an announcement in the window of a shop at Chatham: “The public are requested not to confound this shop with that of another swindler who has established himself on the other side of the way.” There is a story told of two rival shoemakers, one of whom astonished his opponent by the inscription, “Mens conscia recti.” He was not allowed his triumph unalloyed, for the other, after puzzling over the notice for some days, divined that it was some new name for “understandings,” and feeling sure there was nothing in the opposition shop that was not in his own, replied with this, “Men’s and women’s conscia recti may be obtained here.” This story, however, requires confirmation, as does that of the two provincial photographers. One is said to have placed over his studio, “The acme of photography,” to which his enemy and neighbour replied, “Photography in the very height of acme.” Salt seems necessary to both of these, but we are informed on good authority that the next one is quite true. A correspondent says that the following is a verbatim copy of a sign formerly to be seen over a shoemaker’s shop in the village of Heallan, near Denbigh, Wales. The schoolmaster would seem to have been a long way abroad when the sign was composed:--

Pryce Dyas, Coblar, daler in Bacco Shag and Pig tail, Bacon and Ginarbread Eggs laid every morning by me, and very good Paradise, in the Summer, Gentlemen and Lady can have good Tae and Crumquets and Strawburry with a scim milk, because I can’t get no cream.--N.B. Shuse and Boots mended very well.

Of a similar kind is the following, which was, years back, copied from a bill in the window of a small house near Lancaster:--

James Williams, parish clerk, saxtone, town crier, and bellman, makes and sells all sorts of haberdasharies, groceries, &c.; likewise, hair and wigs drest and cut on the shortest notice. N.B.--I keeps an evening scool, where I teach, at reasonable rates, reading, riting, and rithmitic, and singing. N.B.--I play the hooboy occasionally if wanted. N.B.--My shop is next door, where I bleed, draw teeth, and shoo horses, with the greatest scil. N.B.--Children taut to dance if agreeable at 6d. per week, by me, J. Williams, who buy and sell old iron, and coats--boots and shoos cleaned and mended. N.B.--A hat and pr of stockens to be cudgelled for, the best in 5, on Shrof Tushday. For particulars encuire within, or at the horse shoo and bell, near the church, on t’other side the way. N.B.--Look over the dore for the sign of the 3 pidgeons. N.B.--I sells good ayle, and sometimes cyder. Lodgings for single men. N.B.--I teach jografy, algebry, and them outlandish kind of things. A ball on Wednesdays and Fridays.

The next quaint window inscription, which treats of the troubles of a small shopkeeper, may also be depended upon, it being an exact copy of a written card suspended in the shop window of a tradesman in Horsemarket Street, Warrington. One can conceive the amount of provocation undergone and the indignation felt by the honest purveyor of mousetraps, whose blood must have been at boiling point when he penned this:--

Notice I dont keep twelve hole mousetrap nor penney ones what i keep I sell to respectable people not to impudent Boys Hand Bad Girls that comes to rob me and annoy me and has bad parents those that come into my shop shall be severely beat and put into the celler and took before the magistrates those that come into a shop and ask for article that is not made they must come to steal.

Examples like this are manifold, and could be extended to great length, but those we have given are quite enough to afford a vivid idea of the danger of venturing upon literature without the precaution of first learning the rudiments of education, and of the ridicule likely to attend upon any more than usually ambitious effort, which succeeds in landing its perpetrator quite out of his depth.

Old playbills offer a fruitful subject to the investigator, but their actual origin is hidden in the obscurity of ages. So far as their history goes, however, they are plentiful, and mention of them is made in works of a period far anterior to the date of any specimens extant. The modern drama had its origin in an attempt to commemorate the mysteries of the Incarnation, from whence the plays were called mysteries; and it is recorded that one Gregory Nazianzen, an early father of the Christian Church, constructed a drama on the Passion, for the purpose of counteracting the profanities of the ancient plays, about the year of our Lord 364. We have to pass over eight hundred years for the next mention of dramatic representations, and then it is met in Fitzstephen, who states that “London had for its theatrical exhibitions holy plays, and the representation of miracles wrote by holy confessors.” This would be towards the close of the twelfth century; and next we come to the Chester Mysteries, which were performed about 1270. These have been reprinted during the present century, and the application of the word mystery is explained in the two subjoined verses from the proclamation or prologue to the Whitsun Plays, a title by which the famous Chester Mysteries were also known. The “moonke” mentioned is Done Rondali, of Chester Abbey, who founded the plays:--

This moonke, moonke-like in Scriptures well seene In storyes travelled with the best sorte; In pagentes set fourth, apparently to all eyne, The Olde and Newe Testament with livelye comforte; Intermynglinge therewith, onely to make Sporte, Some things not warranted by any writt, Which, to glad the hearers, he woulde men to take yt.

Now, you worshippfull Tanners, that of custome olde The fall of Lucifer did set out, Some writers awarrante your matter; therefore be boulde, Lustily to playe the same to all the rowtte; And yf any thereof stande in any doubte, Your author his author hath, your shewe let bee, Good speech, fyne players, with apparill comelye.

With the history of plays we have nothing to do, and need only state that the first regular English tragedy was “Ferrex and Porrex,” which was acted before Queen Elizabeth on the 18th of January 1561 by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple. This same play was tried at one of the minor theatres in 1854, but had no claim upon the tastes of the time. From a passage in Strype’s Life of Archbishop Grindall, it has been assumed that the custom of issuing bills, giving information concerning the time, place, and nature of plays to be acted, came in with the plays themselves, as it is there shown to exist prior to the year 1563. In alluding to Grindall’s objections to dramatic representations, Strype mentions that the Archbishop complained to Queen Elizabeth’s secretary that the players “did then daily, but especially on the holidays, set up their bills, inviting to plays.” This, however, is a somewhat curious error of Strype’s, into which Mr Payne Collier has also fallen. The Bishop did not write bills but booths; his words are as follows: “Common players, now daylie, but speciallye on holy dayes, set up boothes whereunto the youthe resorteth excessively.” There is, however, other evidence to prove that playbills were in use not long after the above date; for John Northbrooke, in his treatise against theatrical performances, printed about 1579, says: “They use to set up their bills upon posts some certain days before, to admonish people to make resort to their theatres.” At that time the Stationers’ Company had the right of giving licences for the printing of playbills, and in the year 1587 its Court of Assistants conferred upon John Charlewood the privilege of being the sole printer of bills for players. Before that time they were printed by one James Roberts, who names “the bills for the players” amongst his publications as early as 1573--six years before Northbrooke’s mention of them--and, authorised no doubt by Charlewood, he continued to print them until after the year 1600. This right of printing playbills was at a subsequent period assumed by the Crown. A broadside, dated 1620, is preserved in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries, by which this privilege was granted to a printing firm by James I. It is entitled “An Abstract of his Majesty’s Letters Patent granted unto Roger Wood and Thomas Symcocke, for the sole printing of paper and parchment on the one side.” Among the articles enumerated as coming under this category are, “Bills for Playes, Pastimes, Showes, Challenges, Prizes, or Sportes whatsoever.” At the end the public are informed that if they may want any work of that description, they need only repair to Edward Allde (Wood and Symcocke’s assignee), “in the Old Change at the Golden Anchor, over against Carter Lane end, where they shall be reasonably dealt with for the same.”

According to Malone these early playbills did not contain a list of the characters or of the names of the actors by whom they were represented. But that the name of the author was sometimes, if not always, on the playbill may be inferred from a passage in the anonymous play of “Histriomastix” (1610), act iv., in which Belch, speaking of Post-hast the playwriter, says, “It is as dangerous to read his name at a play dore, as a printed bill on a plague dore,” the allusion being to the practice of writing “Lord have mercy upon us” on the doors of houses in which the plague had broken out, which words of course were a caution, and made people pass on hurriedly. In the same play also we find a curious illustration of our subject in a reference to the part of one of the inferior actors. In act iii. the stage direction says, “Enter Belch setting up bills.” And it may not be out of place to remark that the word poster is evidently derived from the custom of sticking bills on posts. That bills were stuck on posts for choice, many of them at stated or customary places, there is plenty of evidence. Sometimes they were ordered to be stuck upon doors and gates, as in the following, though this very possibly means door or gate post. From the Moderate Intelligencer, March 18-25, 1647, we discover that in the time of civil war, when the bishops’ lands and palaces were sold, the following places were appointed by Parliament to be used for affixing bills concerning the sales. Upon the outer gate and upon the hall door of Sir Richard Gourney’s house in the Old Jewry (this was the office where the committee charged with those sales held their sitting), upon the north door of St Paul’s Church, upon the gate of Guildhall, and upon the gate of Blackwell Hall.

As long as they have had an existence--from the sixteenth century--these bills have gone by the name of playbills. In the prologue to the anonymous tragedy of “A Warning for Fair Women” (1599), Tragedy whips History and Comedy from the stage, exclaiming:--

’Tis you have kept the theatre so long Painted in Play bills upon every post, While I am scornèd of the multitude.

They have also, however, in various places and at various times, been called “text bills for plays.” The natural and shorter title, though, always overruled its more pretentious rival. From the prologue to Shirley’s “Cardinal” (1652) it appears that it was usual to add on the bill whether the piece was a comedy or a tragedy. This “Cardinal” being a tragedy, the author apologises in the following words for only calling it “a play” in the bills:--

Think what you please, we call it but a “play.” Whether the comic muse, or lady’s love, Romance, or direful tragedy it prove, The bill determines not: and you would be Persuaded I would have’t a comedy For all the purple in the name.

From which it may be inferred that the names of tragedies, for greater distinction, were usually, or at all events occasionally, printed in red ink. That the custom of posting playbills continued in the reign of Charles II. may be inferred from the following entry in Pepys’ Diary: “I went to see if any play was acted and I found none upon the posts, it being Passion Weeke.”

During the Civil Wars the drama had a hard struggle not to be swamped in the deluge which destroyed all things appertaining to the pomp and luxury of the Court, or connected with pleasure generally. The face of the Parliament was turned against stage-plays, and when the war broke out, one of the first measures was that which led to the publication of the following bill:--

Ordinance of the Lords and Commons concerning Stage-Plays.

^Whereas,^

The distressed Estate of Ireland, steeped in her own Blood, and the distracted Estate of England, threatened with a Cloud of Blood by a civil War, call for all possible Means to appease and avert the Wrath of God, appearing in these Judgements; amongst which Fasting and Prayer, having been often tried to be very effectual, have been lately, and are still, enjoined; And whereas public Sports do not well agree with public Calamities, nor public Stage-plays with the Seasons of Humiliation, this being an exercise of sad and pious Solemnity, and the other being Spectacles of Pleasure too commonly expressing lascivious Mirth and Levity; It is therefore thought fit, and ordered by the Lords and Commons in this Parliament assembled, That while these sad Causes and set Times of Humiliation do continue, public Stage-plays shall cease and be forborne. Instead of which are recommended to the People of this Land the profitable and seasonable consideration of Repentance, Reconciliation, and Peace with God, which probably will produce outward Peace and Prosperity, and bring again Times of Joy and Gladness to these Nations.

This intimation was of course received with much outcry, and “The Actors’ Remonstrance” was soon published. In it the writer complains naturally of a law which robs the poor player of his livelihood, and allows bear-gardens and suchlike places to remain unmolested to the delectation of “boisterous butchers, cutting cobblers, hard-handed masons, and the like riotous disturbers of the public peace.” The playhouses are defended against sundry charges brought against them, and a promise is made that no female whatsoever shall be admitted unless accompanied by her husband or some male relative; besides which the use of tobacco is to be forbidden even in the threepenny galleries, except in the case of “the pure Spanish leaf.” It may thus be readily guessed that something worse even than the cheap “sensation smokes” of the present day was often misnamed tobacco. This is hard to believe, however. The promise extends to the expulsion of all ribaldry from the stage; and the actors say, “We will so demean ourselves as none shall esteem us of the ungodly, or have cause to repine at our actions or interludes; we will not entertain any comedian that shall speak his part in a tone as if he did it in derision of some of the pious, but reform all our disorders and amend all our amisses.” During the Commonwealth, stage-plays were almost openly connived at; and the licence indulged in during the Restoration days is too well known to require notice here.

An interesting epoch in the history of the drama is the first appearance of David Garrick, and it is noticeable that the playbill which commemorates the event does not contain his name. Neither, for the matter of that, does it contain the name of the author of the play, who, if Shakespeare, must have been improved and amended. The monopoly of the patent theatres was such that these plays had to be advertised and regarded as simply interludes to a musical entertainment. As witness:--

October 19, 1741.

GOODMAN’S FIELDS.

At the late Theatre in Goodman’s Fields, this Day will be perform’d a Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Music, divided into two Parts.

Tickets at Three, Two and One Shilling.

Places for the Boxes to be taken at the Fleece Tavern, near the Theatre.

N.B. Between the two Parts will be presented an Historical Play, called the Life and Death of

KING RICHARD THE THIRD,

containing the Distresses of KING HENRY VI. The Artful Acquisition of the Crown by KING RICHARD, The Murder of the young King Edward V. and his Brother, in the Tower, The Landing of the Earl of Richmond, And the Death of King Richard in the memorable Battle of Bosworth Field, being the last that was fought between the Houses of York and Lancaster. With many other true historical Passages.

The Part of KING RICHARD by a Gentleman. (Who never appeared on any Stage.)

King Henry, by Mr. Giffard; Richmond, Mr. Marshall; Prince Edward, by Miss Hippisley; Duke of York, Miss Naylor; Duke of Buckingham, Mr. Peterson; Duke of Norfolk, Mr. Blades; Lord Stanley, Mr. Pagett; Oxford, Mr. Vaughan; Tressel, Mr. W. Giffard; Catesby, Mr. Marr; Rutcliff, Mr. Crofts; Blunt, Mr. Naylor; Tyrrell, Mr. Puttenham; Lord Mayor, Mr. Dunstall; The Queen, Mrs. Steel; Duchess of York, Mrs. Yates;

And the Part of Lady ANNE By Mrs GIFFARD.

With Entertainments of Dancing

By Mons. Fromet, Madame Duvall, and the two Masters and Miss Granier.

To which will be added a Ballad Opera of one Act, called

THE VIRGIN UNMASK’D. The Part of Lucy by Miss HIPPISLEY.

Both of which will be performed Gratis by Persons for their Diversion. The Concert will begin exactly at Six o’Clock.

This bill would seem to contradict an inscription in the large room at the St John’s Gate Tavern, Clerkenwell, which is to the effect that Garrick made his first appearance on any stage there. The first appearance of David on any stage was at Ipswich, also in 1741, “where, under the assumed name of Lyddul, he appeared as Aboan in the tragedy of ‘Oroonoko.’” His acting at the East End of London was a decided success, and the performances were continued for what was then considered an almost fabulous period. “The other theatres were quickly deserted, and Goodman’s Fields became the resort of people of fashion, even from the West End, till that theatre was shut up.” The last performance at Goodman’s Fields is said to have taken place on a Sunday. Another playbill of the middle of the eighteenth century may be found interesting, though for no such reasons as are found in that of Goodman’s Fields. It is redolent of the pride and poverty which seem to be ever associated with the drama in days gone by, and is given by Boaden in his “Life of Mrs Siddons:”--

At the Old Theatre, in East Grinstead, on Saturday, May, 1758, will be represented (by particular desire, and for the benefit of Mrs. P.) the deep and affecting tragedy of

“THEODOSIUS, OR THE FORCE OF LOVE,”

with magnificent scenes, dresses, &c.

Varanes by Mr. P., who will strive, as far as possible, to support the character of the fiery Persian Prince, in which he was so much admired and applauded at Hastings, Arundel, Petworth, Midworth, Lewes, &c.

Theodosius by a young Gentleman from the University of Oxford, who never appeared on any Stage.

Athenais by Mrs. P. Though her present Condition will not permit her to wait on Gentlemen and Ladies out of the town with Tickets, she hopes, as on former Occasions, for their Liberality and Support.

Nothing in Italy can exceed the Altar, in the first scene of the Play; nevertheless should any of the Nobility or Gentry wish to see it ornamented with Flowers, the Bearer will bring away as many as they choose to favour him with.

As the coronation of Athenais, to be introduced in the fifth Act, contains a number of Personages, more than sufficient to fill all the dressing Rooms, &c., it is hoped no Gentlemen and Ladies will be offended being refused admission behind the Scenes.

N.B. The great yard Dog, that made so much noise on Thursday night, during the last Act of King Richard the Third, will be sent to a Neighbour’s over the way; and on account of the prodigious demand for places, part of the Stable will be laid into the Boxes on one side, and the Granary be open for the same purpose on the other.

Vivat Rex.

Those who are curious in the matter of playbills in all languages will perhaps accept the annexed as a compromise, and as the nearest thing in a general way we can manage in the space at command. Those also who are good at riddles may like to try their skill on it:--

NOTICE.

SAturday 30 and on Sunday 31 of the corrent, in the Royal Theatre of St. Charles will be represented by the Italian Company the famous Holy Drama intitled

IL TRIONFO DI GIUDITTA

O SIA

LA MORTE D’ OLOFERNE.

In the interval of the first to the second act it shall have a new and pompous Ball of the composition of John Baptista Gianini, who has by title:

IL SACRIFICIO D’ ABRAMO

in which will enter all the excellent corp of Ball, who dance at present in the said Royal Theatre; the spetacle will be finished with the second act and Ball analog to the same Drama, all with the nessessary decoration.

This is who is offered to the Respectable Publick of whom is waited all the proctetion and concurrence:

It will begin at 8 o’clok.

Na officina de Simāo Thaddeo Ferreira. 1811. Com licenca.

We next append a bill of the far-famed Richardson’s Theatre under date 1825--one of those distributed during the Bartlemy Fair of that year. Hone describes the theatre thus: “The outside of this show was in height upwards of thirty feet, and occupied one hundred feet in width. The platform on the outside was very elevated; the back of it was lined with green baize, and festooned with deeply-fringed crimson curtains, except at two places, where the money-takers sat, which were wide and roomy projections, fitted up like Gothic shrine-work, with columns and pinnacles. There were fifteen hundred variegated illumination-lamps disposed over various parts of the platform, some of them depending from the top in the shape of chandeliers and lustres, and others in wreaths and festoons. A band of ten performers in scarlet dresses, similar to those worn by beefeaters, continually played on clarionets, violins, trombones, and the long drum; while the performers paraded in their gayest ‘properties’ before the gazing multitude. Audiences rapidly ascended on each performance being over, and paying their money to the receivers in their Gothic seats, had tickets in return; which being taken at the doors, admitted them to descend into the ‘theatre.’” The bill is as follows:--

⁂ Change of Performance each Day.

RICHARDSON’S THEATRE.

This Day will be performed, an entire New Melo-Drama, called the WANDERING OUTLAW, Or, the Hour of Retribution.

Gustavus, Elector of Saxony Mr. Wright. Orsina, Baron of Holstein Mr. Cooper. Ulric and Albert, Vassals to Orsina Messrs. Grove and Moore. St. Clair, the Wandering Outlaw Mr. Smith. Rinalda, the Accusing Spirit Mr. Darling.

Monks, Vassals, Hunters, &c.

Rosabella, Wife to the Outlaw Mrs. Smith.

Nuns and Ladies.

The Piece concludes with the DEATH of ORSINA, and the Appearance of the ACCUSING SPIRIT.

_The Entertainments to conclude with a New Comic Harlequinade, with New Scenery, Tricks, Dresses, and Decorations, called_ HARLEQUIN FAUSTUS! OR, THE DEVIL WILL HAVE HIS OWN.

Luciferno, Mr. THOMAS.

Dæmon Amozor, afterwards Pantaloon, Mr. WILKINSON.--Dæmon Ziokos, afterwards Clown, Mr. HAYWARD.--Violoncello Player, Mr. HARTEM.--Baker, Mr. THOMPSON.--Landlord, Mr. WILKINS--Fisherman, Mr. RAE.--Dr. Faustus, afterwards Harlequin, Mr. SALTER.

Adelada, afterwards Columbine, Miss WILMOT.

Attendant Dæmons, Sprites, Fairies, Ballad Singers, Flower Girls, &c. &c.

The Pantomime will finish with A SPLENDID PANORAMA Painted by the First Artists.

BOXES, 2_s._ PIT, 1_s._ GALLERY, 6_d._

Of show advertisements of a different kind, we have preserved one or two notable specimens. The first is of the time of William and Mary, and gives itself in two languages, though, unlike the opera bill given a page or so back, it keeps them separate:--

A Raritie in Nature.

Surpassing all Prodigies and strange Births that ever were seen, more admired by the Learned than any sort of Creature that ever was brought to England, whose Body is of different Colours, part white, part brown and smooth, part Hairy like a Satyr, with admirable unusual growings out, that no reason can be given for. This Maid is about 16 years of age, of a comely Countenance, proportionable Body, hath an excellent head of Hair, speaketh good English, is Ingenious and Modest. Any particular Company may see her at any hour of the day in Bell Savage Yard on Ludgate Hill, London.

God save the KING.

Vne Raretée en la Nature, viz.

Une Fille tres Admirable, elle est belle, agée de seize ans, son visage, Col, mameles, Bras & Mains, sont de Coleur Blanche, merques de beaucoup taches naturelles, les jambs, & pieds toutes de mesmes, le rest du Corps est de divers Coleurs, avec des Excrescenes fort estranges on n’a jamais veue une telle. L’on la voit en toutes heures du jour dans Bell-savage-yard on Ludgate Hill, London.

VIVAT REX.

It is noticeable that the showman uses the common Latin form of “Vivat Rex” under his French, and adopts an English equivalent in his other column. About twenty years ago a similar creature was shown in London, and those who had her in charge vamped up most marvellous stories to account for the lusus naturæ, both decency and probability being outraged in the attempt to excite a “sensation.” The next bill is, though of the show series, of a totally different character, and refers to one of the exhibitions of the famous Figg, the swordsman and pugilist. It is now the fashion to decry such adventures as that advertised; but it is hard to believe that both Figg and Sutton were not far more respectable characters than many who practise the licensed and misnamed sport of modern times. For ourselves, we could have looked at such free agents as the rapier and backsword men, or even the more degraded pugilists, doing their best and their worst on each other, rather than sit out an aristocratic pigeon match, assist at a battue, or be party to the coursing of trapped hares and rabbits.

G. R.

At Mr. FIGG’s New Amphitheatre.

Joyning to his House, the Sign of the City of Oxford, in Oxford Road, Marybone Fields, on Wednesday next, being the 8th of June, 1726. Will be Perform’d a Tryal of Skill by the following Masters.

WHereas I EDWARD SUTTON, Pipemaker from Gravesend, and Kentish Professor of the Noble Science of Defence, having, under a Sleeveless Pretence been deny’d a Combat by and with the Extoll’d Mr. FIGG; which I take to be occasioned through fear of his having that Glory Eclipsed by me, wherewith the Eyes of all Spectators have been so much dazzled: Therefore, to make appear, that the Great Applause which has so much puff’d up this Hero, has proceeded only from his Foyling such who are not worthy the name of Swordsmen, as also that he may be without any farther Excuse; I do hereby dare the said Mr. FIGG to meet as above, and dispute with me the Superiority of Judgment in the Sword (which will best appear by Cuts, &c.) at all the Weapons he is or shall be then Capable of Performing on the Stage.

* * * * *

I JAMES FIGG, Oxonian Professor of the said Science, will not fail giving this daring Kentish Champion an Opportunity to make good his Allegations; when, it is to be hop’d, if he finds himself Foyl’d he will then change his Tone, and not think himself one of the Number who are not worthy the Name of Swordsmen, as he is pleased to signifie by his Expression: However, as the most significant Way of deciding these Controversies is by Action, I shall defer what I have farther to Act till the Time above specified; when I shall take care not to deviate from my usual Custom, in making all such Bravadoes sensible of their Error, as also in giving all Spectators intire Satisfaction.

N.B. The Doors will be open’d at Four, and the Masters mount between Six and Seven exactly.

VIVAT REX.

Sutton does not seem to have made much but hard knocks by his desire to uphold the honour of pipemakers and Kentish men, for Figg is generally characterised as retiring undefeated, and Captain Godfrey, the great amateur of his day, makes reference to the defeat of Sutton in his “Treatise upon the Useful Science of Defence” (1747). Speaking of the Oxford professor, he says: “Fig was the atlas of the sword, and may he remain the gladiating statue! In him, strength, resolution, and unparalleled judgment conspired to form a matchless master. There was a majesty shone in his countenance, and blazed in all his actions, beyond all I ever saw. His right leg bold and firm, and his left, which could hardly ever be disturbed, gave him the surprising advantage already proved, and struck his adversary with despair and panic. He had that peculiar way of stepping in I spoke of in a parry; he knew his arm and its just time of moving, put a firm faith in that, and never let his adversary escape his parry. He was just as much a greater master than any other I ever saw, as he was a greater judge of time and measure.” Of Sutton the enthusiastic captain tells us that “he was a resolute, pushing, awkward swordsman; but by his busy intruding arm, and scrambling legs, there were few judgments but what were disordered and disconcerted. Fig managed him the best of any by his charming distinction of time and measure, in which he far excelled all, and sufficiently proved these two be the sword’s true foundation.” Figg was also a great bruiser, and was regarded as the champion of the boxers as well as the master of the swordsmen. He was a genial good-tempered fellow, and was the boon companion of many eminent authors and artists of his time.

So much for show and play bills, and the celebrities to whom they have introduced us. We will now turn to handbill and poster advertisements of various descriptions. Tickets and bills containing the information that apartments were to be let were set up over doors at least as early as 1665. In the “Pillulæ Pestilentialis” of the Rev. Richard Hingston, preacher, of St James’s, Clerkenwell, there is the following in reference to the Plague and the practice just mentioned:--

No Papers then o’er our Doors were set With “Chambers ready furnished to be Let,” But a sad “Lord have Mercy upon us” and A bloody Cross as fatal Marks did stand.

At the end of a pamphlet, printed in 1673, entitled “An Essay to revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen, in Religion, Manners, and Tongues,” there is a postscript, containing an advertisement of a boarding school at Tottenham High Cross. This establishment was under the management of Mrs Makin, who had been tutoress to the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Charles I., and who put forth part of her prospectus in the following manner:--

Here by the blessing of God, Gentlewomen may be instructed in the principles of Religion, and in all manner of sober and virtuous Education: more especially in all Things ordinarily taught in Schools for the other Sex; as in

Works of all sorts, Dancing, Music, Singing, Writing, Keeping Accounts.

Half the Time is to be spent in these Things, and the other half to be employed in gaining the Latin and French Tongues, and those that please may learn Greek and Hebrew, the Italian and Spanish; in all which this Gentlewoman hath a competent knowledge.

Gentlewomen of eight or nine Years old, that can read well, may be instructed in a Year or two (according to their Parts) in the Latin and French Tongues, by plain and short Rules accommodated to the English Tongue.

Those that will bestow a longer Time may learn the other Languages before mentioned, if they please.

Repositories also for Visibles shall be prepared, by which from beholding the things, Gentlewomen may learn the Names, Natures, Values, and Uses of Herbs, Shrubs, Trees, mineral Juices, Metals and Stones.

Those that please may learn Limning, Preserving, Pastry, and Cookery, etc.

The rate shall be certain £20 per Annum; but if a competent improvement be made in the Tongues, and the other Things before mentioned, as shall be agreed upon them, something more will be expected. But the Parents shall judge what shall be deserved by the Undertaker.

Sterne, who knew as much about struggles and adversity as most people, used to tell this story about his young days: “I happened to be acquainted with a young man from Yorkshire, who rented a window in one of the paved alleys near Cornhill, for the sale of stationery. I hired one of the panes of glass from my friend, and stuck up the following advertisement with wafers:--

Epigrams, Anagrams, Paragrams, Chronograms, Monograms, Epitaphs, Epithalamiums, Prologues, Epilogues, Madrigals, Interludes, Advertisements, Letters, Petitions, Memorials, on every occasion, Essays on every subject, Pamphlets for and against Ministers, Sermons upon any Text or for any Sect, to be written here, on reasonable terms, by

A. B. Philologer.

“The uncommonness of the titles occasioned numerous applications, and at night I used privately to glide into the office to digest the notes or heads of the day, and receive the earnest which was directed always to be left with the memorandums, the writing to be paid for on delivery, according to the subject.” Yorick speedily became disgusted with this employment, however, and as soon as he possibly could retired from it.

Another of the triumphs which have unfortunately not come down to the present generation, and which many will consider to be hardly compensated for by gas, steam, and electricity, the postal service and the police system, is that of Mr Nunn, whose bill, published to the world in the latter portion of the eighteenth century, runs thus:--

Breeches Making improved by Geometry.

Thomas Nunn, Breeches-Maker, No. 29, Wigmore Street, Cavendish Square, has invented a System on a mathematical Principle, by which Difficulties are solved, and Errors corrected; its usefulness for Ease and Neatness in fitting is incomparable, and is the only perfect Rule for that Work ever discovered. Several hundreds (Noblemen, Gentlemen, and Others) who have had Proof of its Utility, allow it to excel all they ever made Trial of.

N.B. An approved Method is adopted for keeping them clean without discommoding by Dust.

In some future day, when personal comfort again becomes one of the fine arts, one of the chief tests for a wranglership may be the making of mathematical breeches. If the age is very material, perhaps the approved method of cleaning them may stand in stead of classics, which are already going much out of fashion. Our next specimen comes from the Emerald Isle, and though short is well marked with both of the most prominent characteristics of the natives. It was given away and posted up in various parts of Dublin at the end of July 1781:--

This is to certify that I, Daniel O’Flannaghan, am not the Person that was tarred and feathered by the Liberty Mob, on Tuesday last; and I am ready to give 20 Guineas to any one that will lay me 50, that I am the other Man who goes by my Name.

Witness my Hand, this 30th July.

DANIEL O’FLANNAGHAN.

A man who can afford to lay seventy guineas to thirty that he is himself, and nobody else, deserves credit for his boldness, if not for his ingenuity. Another bill from Ireland, of a few years later on, next claims our attention. It refers to a house to let in Coleraine, and is a specimen of quite another kind of Hibernian humour:--

To be Let

To an OPPIDAN, a RURICOLIST, or a COSMOPOLITAN, and may be entered upon immediately.

The House in STONE ROW, lately possessed by Capt. Siree. To avoid verbosity the proprietor with compendiosity will give a perfunctory description of the premises, in the compagination of which he has sedulously studied the convenience of the occupant--it is free from opacity, tenebrosity, fumidity, and injucundity, and no building can have greater pellucidity or translucency--in short, its diaphaneity even in the crepuscule makes it like a pharos, and without laud, for its agglutimation and amenity, it is a most delectable commorance; and whoever lives in it will find that the neighbours have none of the truculence, the immanity, the torvity, the spinosity, the putidness, the pugnacity, nor the fugacity observable in other parts of the town; their propinquity and consanguinity occasions jucundity and pudicity--from which, and the redolence of the place (even in the dog days) they are remarkable for longevity. For terms and particulars apply to JAMES HUTCHISON, opposite the MARKET HOUSE.

Coleraine, 30th September, 1790.

We commend this to that rather numerous class of people who like words with plenty of sound, and regard sense as quite a secondary consideration. Dogberry would have been delighted with it, and the writer could have commanded his own price as a contributor to certain newspapers, or as a sporting tipster. We have already given our readers an advertising tombstone, which was a swindle, inasmuch as it was placed up to the memory of a person who never existed. We now give another, which is really what it pretends to be--an improvement of the opportunity to combine business, not with pleasure, but with mourning. It stood, we are told, in a burial-ground belonging to one of our old ivy-clad churches in the North, and was an elegantly-carved memorial stone, the inscription being:--

Sacred to the Memory of JOHN ROBERTS, Stonemason and Tombcutter, Who died on Saturday, October the 8th, 1800. N.B.--The business carried on by the Widow at No. 1, Freshfield place.

Perhaps her being in the “tombstone line” may be an excuse for the widow Roberts. We don’t suppose she needed one, however, for any one who would do what she did would be quite callous as to the world’s opinions. Of the two we much prefer the Frenchman who erected the stone to an entirely supposititious person, to the widow who traded on her husband’s grave. This reminds us that we have received, among many communications, one containing the above sketch of an advertising tombstone, which the writer, who dates from a well-known town in the north, Gateshead, states positively stood in a neighbouring churchyard within his recollection. The address, he says, was on the footstone. We give the illustration “without prejudice.” Do tripe and trotters after all produce a prosaic condition of the human mind suggested by this tombstone, or would the relict of Jeremy have done as she did had her wares been of a different kind? In the interests of the edibles referred to, for which we must confess a weakness, we trust she would. But who shall say?

At the time of the marriage of George the Third’s eldest daughter to the Duke of Wurtemburg, a curious little handbill was given away about London. It was printed on both sides, and looked like a tract. Its contents were to the following effect:--

FRAGMENT of a CHAPTER concerning the curious MANGLE of BEETHAM appointed to be read by all the LADIES and LAUNDRESSES of the land of Albion.

By His Majesty’s special command.

CHAP. I.

1 Beetham’s fame and diligence. 3 his marvellous mill. 6 he constructs a mangle which surprises the World. 8 The Princesses visit his museum and praise the curious Machinery. 16 He is mimiced by others. 18 The King grants his royal patent to the Artist. 22 Beetham is recompensed by the nobles and the people.

NOW it came to pass, even towards the close of the eighteenth century, that there lived in the great city which is called London a certain man of the name of Beetham who had many curious inventions.

2 The same mechanic while the world waged war against Albion cultivated with all diligence the arts of Peace in the ways of wisdom.

3 When therefore he saw that his washing mill pleased the people and was daily employed by all throughout the regions of Britain and her colonies.

4 Behold he also constructed another machine more marvellous than the first which is called a Mangle even to this day. 5 Neither adhered he to the old gothic plan of his predecessors but formed it new and surprising in simplicity so that a little maiden could set it in motion.

6 And it came to pass when a great company of ladies and laundresses beheld the infant turn the wheel with wonderful ease and moreover saw the wheel move backwards as well as the way of the wheel whose revolution was always the same and also saw it move as by self instinct.

7 That they cried aloud with one voice saying, great and marvellous is the Mangle of Beetham.

8 And in process of time, the princesses and the nobles accompanied a certain great prince who came from a far country to carry away a royal beauty, even the eldest daughter of the King.

9 And behold as they passed on their way to view the wonders of the great temple of Paul, one of the damsels lifted up her azure eyes and beheld the Museum of Beetham fronting the temple of Dunstan.

10 At that instant the child was turning the wonderful Mill which laved the fine linen clean and white in the twinkling of an eye;

11 Also another child by its feeble arm was moving the newly invented Mangle.

12 And lo, one of the nobles cried, wherefore should we pass on further into the city, let us step aside and see this miracle.

13 Now it came to pass that the company alighted from their gilded chariots and went into the Museum, and marvelled much at the curious machines.

14 And when they saw the Mill and the Mangle, the Wringer also, and the machine for the Churning of Milk, which even Solomon with all his wisdom never invented.

15 They all with one accord commanded the master of the Museum to prepare for the Princess one of each of these curious machines; to the end she might spread the fame of the inventor all over the land, in which she was soon to be a sojourner.

16 ¶ Now--the Mimic Machinists of those days by their enchantments strove to surpass Beetham, but failed by falling into the great chaos of complication:

17 So that, like the builders of Babel they were confounded; crying aloud, surely all machination against Beetham must fail, neither can we imitate the simplicity of his Mangle.

18 And word was carried to the King in those days, even concerning the new invention of the artist of London.

19 Which prevailed upon him when he also heard of the utility of the Mangle in tender kindness to all the laundresses of the land to cause his Royal signet to be set on a certain parchment called a patent.

20 So that until twice seven seasons should pass no man should imitate the machine but by the consent of Beetham the Proprietor thereof.

21 And when the King had so done, lo there was prepared many machines of various sizes in order that the high and the low, the rich and the poor, might use the same throughout the land, but Beetham was the vender of them all.

22 And for those which the Princess and the Lords and Ladies of the Land did cause to be sent to them which were made of Oak whose duration shall far exceed the years of the generations of the sons of men and which were for smoothing all the linen of the Households of the mighty nobles, Beetham received certain pieces of money which being counted in the coin of Albion amounted to Ten guineas.

23 And for such as were made of the wood called Beech he received nine pieces of gold and for others eight pieces of the like coin, but for less than eight pieces Beetham sent not the Mangle forth among the inhabitants of the land.

24 And behold all the people rejoiced extremely and the fame of the Mangle was spread abroad among all the isles of Britain even to the remotest part thereof; and the ships of the sea were laden with the same machines to the Colonies abroad, and in all those parts of the Earth where Economy is an object, where Convenience is desirable, and where Cleanliness is esteemed next to Godliness.

* * * * *

Mr. BEETHAM’s NEW PATENT PORTABLE WASHING MILL

IS so universally used and Economical, that it deserves the serious attention of the Public in general.

1 It renders the linen whiter and cleaner than it can be made by any other method.

2 It will wash more in one hour than ten women can in the same time.

3 It is so saving, that for Five Shillings it will wash as much as will cost One Guinea in the common mode.

4 The price of the Mill is very soon cleared by what it saves in soap, coals, manual labour and the preservation of the linen.

This invaluable invention may be seen from Eleven until Two every day.

A Mill large enough to wash 8 shirts 4l. 4s. 14, 4l. 14s. 6d. 18, 5l. 5s. 24, 6l. 6s.

One to first and second, 10l. 10s. Wringer, 1l. 1s.

This Beetham was the grandfather, on her mother’s side, of Miss Reed, the celebrated old lady of Stamford Street, whose houses were for many years in a notoriously dismantled and dilapidated condition, and who not very long since left a hundred thousand pounds to the Brompton Hospital. Her mother was a pupil of Opie’s, and before she married Mr Reed, a solicitor, some of her pictures were exhibited as those of her master. She late in life became eccentric, but not to such an extent as her daughter, whose name was at one time almost a household word. Another tradesman of the City, who was well known for his devotion to the art of advertising, early in the present century put forth this, which is rather magniloquent, considering the subject which forms its basis:--

MAY THE WINGS OF EXTRAVAGANCE be clipped by the Scissars of Economy--was the constant toast of a person who knew very well the value of a sixpence. To all good economists would Romanis wish to be recommended, though but a bad practitioner himself, (he is a little like the clergy--“Don’t do as I do, but as I tell you to do.”) When you want real good Stockings at a low price, come to the Sign of the Regent, 33 in Cheapside--there you have them in perfection, and I am certain sixpence in a pair is worth saving; and any one that is possest of the least spark of parsimony will give their assent. Frugality is certainly a good thing--it enables a people to pay taxes--to pay their armies--to thrash the French--to make peace on good terms--to extend commerce--to make people live long and comfortable:

FOR STOCKINGS Romanis against the whole World, at his Mart, 33 Cheapside.

From small beginnings great events arise--only see what benefit to the nation as well as to private individuals accrued from the purchase of cheap stockings. Romanis has never been mentioned in conjunction with Wellington, yet he seems to have had a good deal to do towards building up the victory of Waterloo, and ought to have been remembered, say as much as Blucher, who has been immortalised in the way of boots while the stocking-seller has been clean forgotten.

Another curious advertiser was William Hall of Lynn, who flourished early in the present century. According to Hone, Hall was a celebrated antiquarian bookseller, and received the alias of Will Will-be-So. He was also an auctioneer, and on the market-day he would knock down his lots in great style, and with many whimsical remarks. He had a craze for verse, and in such as follows all his advertisements were written:--

LYNN, 19_th_ SEPTEMBER, 1810.

First Tuesday in the next October, Now do not doubt but we’ll be sober! If Providence permits us action, You may depend upon AN AUCTION, At the stall That’s occupied by WILLIAM HALL.

To enumerate a task would be-- The best way is to come and see; But not to come too vague an errand, We’ll give a sketch which we will warrant. About one hundred books, in due lots, And pretty near the same in shoe-lasts; Coats, waistcoats, breeches, shining buttons, Perhaps ten thousand leather cuttings, Sold at per pound--your lot but ask it, Shall be weighed to you in a basket; Some lot of tools to make a try on, About one hundred-weight of iron; Scales, earthenware, arm-chairs, a tea-urn, Tea-chests, a herring-tub, and so on; With various more that’s our intention, Which are too tedious here to mention. N.B.--To undeceive, ’fore you come nigher, The duty charged upon the buyer; And, should we find we’re not perplext, We’ll keep it up the Tuesday next.

We have two more specimens of the English peculiar to Continentalists, the first being of about the same period as Hall’s verse. It is an exact copy of a card circulated by the landlord of an hotel at Ghent:--

Mr. Dewitt, in the Golden Apple, out of the Bruges Gate at Ghent, has the honour to prevent the Persons who would come at his house, that they shall find there always good and spacious Lodgings, a Table served at their taste, Wine of any quality, etc. Besides he hires Horses and Chaises, which shall be of a great conveniency for the Travellers; the Bark of Bruges depart and arrives every day before his door. He dares flatter himself, that they shall be satisfied, as well with the cheapness of the price, as with the cares such an establishment requires.

This and the next, which was given to the world in 1822, may cause English people who fancy they have the most correct knowledge of French, as well as the true Parisian accent, to be a little cautious in their belief, for there is no doubt that the authors of both notices were very strong on their powers of “spiking the English,” as many French announcements have it:--

M. MARLOTEAU et Cie.

Manufacturers from Paris,

37, MONTMORENCY-STREET,

To London 14 Broad Street, Oxford street.

Acquaint the Trade in general, that they have just established in LONDON.

A Warhouse for FRENCH FLOWERS, for each Season, feathar from hat ladies of their own Manufacture elegant fans of the NEWEST TASTE.

And of Manufactures of PARIS, complette sets ornaments for balls, snuff boxes scale gold and silver, boxes toilette, ribbons and embroidered, hat et cap, from Ladies of the newest Taste, China, all sorts, etc.

He commit generally the articles from Paris, Manufacturers.

And send in all BRITISH CITY.

Attandance from Nine o’Clock in the Morning till five in the Afternoon.

Before and during the year 1825 a man used to stand at the corner of Fleet Market, and deliver handbills in the interest of a society which had for its object the genteel and comfortable interment of its members. One of these advertisements has been preserved, and a copy of it is appended. Its commencement is curious, and must at times have somewhat disconcerted incautious readers, who in the midst of their business cares or pleasure pursuits suddenly had the notice of death thrust upon them. Sir Thomas Browne, who professed to know all about mortality, says that “man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.” Whoever drew up the handbill was certainly aware of the craving which exists in many minds, especially among the lower orders, for a good funeral, and made abundant provision for it. Really a tædium vitæ almost creeps over one upon reading it. Who would not be willing to die, in death to be attended as is promised? Two rows all round of close-drove best black japanned nails feelingly invite and almost irresistibly persuade us to come and be screwed down. What aching head can resist the temptation to repose presented by the handsome crape shroud, the cap, and pillow? What sting is there in death which handles with wrought gripes are not calculated to pluck away? What victory in the grave which the drops and the velvet pall do not render at least extremely disputable? And, above all, a pretty emblematic plate, with the angel above and the flower beneath, is utterly irresistible. But we in our rhapsody had forgotten to copy the bill:--

BURIAL SOCIETY.

A favourable opportunity now offers to any person, of either sex, who would wish to be buried in a genteel manner, by paying one shilling entrance, and twopence per week for the benefit of the stock. Members to be free in six months. The money to be paid at Mr. Middleton’s at the sign of “the First and Last,” Stonecutter Street, Fleet Market. The deceased to be furnished as follows: a strong elm coffin, covered with superfine black, and finished with two rows, all round, close drove, best black japanned nails, and adorned with ornamental drops, a handsome plate of inscription, angel above, and flower beneath, and four pair of handsome handles, with wrought gripes; the coffin to be well pitched, lined, and ruffled with fine crape; a handsome crape shroud, cap, and pillow. For use, a handsome velvet pall, three gentlemen’s cloaks, three crape hatbands, three hoods and scarfs, and six pair of gloves; two porters equipped to attend the funeral, a man to attend the same with band and gloves; also the burial fees paid, if not exceeding one guinea.

The notice further informed the public, that though the society had only been established a very few years, upwards of eleven hundred persons had put down their names. It is worthy of remark that so many people of the industrious classes should have clubbed their twopences to avoid what they considered the disgrace of a parish funeral, and should doubtless have rejoiced when their six months had expired, and they stood face to face with the handsome velvet pall and etceteras. The very poor are to this day very particular about their funerals, and many a savoury morsel is the living body deprived of that the lifeless one may go comfortably to its last home. A labouring man’s greatest pride often is that he gave wife, parent, or child a good funeral; and this feeling is perfectly independent of the wake peculiarities and festivities that obtain among a certain section of the lower orders. Readers must be warned against an idea which they may be apt to form about the place whence these proposals issued. From the sign of the “First and Last,” they might conclude that Mr Middleton was a publican who, in assembling a club of the above description at his house, had a view to his own interest altogether foreign to the purpose for which the society was instituted. Mr Middleton was no publican, though he hung out a sign, but an honest undertaker, who also dealt in wicker ware, and who, by the exhibition of both cradle and coffin as a device, attracted attention to which the motto “First and Last” contributed in no small measure.

The following humorous handbill was about 1825 given away by a publican in the neighbourhood of the Strand. It is certainly a gem in its way, and shows an originality which was more likely to have been possessed by one of the needy and seedy customers hanging about in the vicinity of the theatres fifty years back, than by the well-fed, well-clad, and probably bumptious “bung,” who ought to have made the writer free of his various entertainments during the long “run” they doubtless obtained if the performance was in any way as good as the programme:--

Licensed by Act of Parliament. And under the immediate Patronage of the Public. THEATRE OF EPICUREAN VARIETY at the KING OF PRUSSIA Wych Street.

W. Trampton has the honor of informing his friends and the public that his compact comfortable snug and cosey little Theatre is now open for the Winter Season; where from the well known excellence of the company engaged he trusts to meet with a share of that encouragement it will be his endeavour to merit and his pride to acknowledge.

A peculiar advantage attending this Theatre will no doubt be justly appreciated by the public, namely that tickets of admission may be had for the separate branches of the entertainment, the price of which together with the hours of performance are specified in the following bill:--

During the Week the following Entertainments will be presented.

A favourite Burletta in One Act, called SOMETHING LIKE BREAKFAST.

The chief characters by the celebrated foreign performers, Signiors TEA COFFEE SUGAR etc.

Price of admission 10d. Hours from 8 to 10 A.M. After which, a Bagatelle, or Interlude in One Act, called IF YOU LIKE IT, LUNCH IT.

The characters by Messrs CHESCHIRE GLOUCESTER CRUST KIDNEY RAREBIT etc. And other well known Performers who will be found ever ready at the call of the Public.

At the Hour of three P.M. a Grand Melodrama in two Acts called HOW SHALL I DINE?

The chief Character on Monday by the celebrated old Roscius of the Epicurean Stage, ROAST BEEF.

The other Characters by the celebrated Murphys etc., assisted by the Little Pickles etc.

Guards, Messrs Cayenne etc. Scenery by Messrs Diaper and Assistants. Dresses by Mrs Cook.

Music (a joint composition of Handel and Stick) by Messrs Knife and Fork.

Price of Admission One Shilling.

The principal Character in the above-mentioned Piece will be sustained by different Actors of celebrity during the week, viz.

Tuesday Boiled Mutton, Wednesday Roast or Boiled Pork, Thursday Veal and Bacon, Friday Boiled Beef, Saturday Roast Mutton.

At Eight P.M. every evening the well known eccentric Pat Murphy (in company with his friend Pat Butter) will have the honour of making his appearance in his much admired hot-jacket of brown.

Theatre closed every Evening at half past Eleven.

N.B. A stout and venerable white-headed Porter from the office of Messrs Goodwyn & Co. will attend the Theatre for the purpose of keeping good order during the performance.

The whole got up under the immediate care of Stage Manager W. Trampton.

Between forty and fifty years ago there was an amusing contest going on between two tradespeople in the City: both were hairdressers, and lived opposite each other. Seeing that the one throve by selling pomade made of bear’s grease, the other, knowing that it was just as good and more profitable to sell any other material in pots with “bear’s grease” on the label, started in opposition, using similar pots to those sold by his opponent, filled with an inexpensive unguent. The first dealer, who was known to keep bears in his cellar, and who had himself taken up once a week before the sitting alderman as a nuisance, by way of advertisement, killed a bear upon this, and hung him up whole in full sight in his shop. He also wrote in the window, “A fresh bear killed this day!” The other, who had but one bear in all the world, which he privately led out of his house after dark every night, and brought him back in the morning (to seem like a new supply going on), continued his sale, and announced in his window, “Our fresh bear will be killed to-morrow.” The original vendor then, determined to cut off his rival’s last shift, kept his actual bears, defunct, with the skins only half off, like calves at a butcher’s, hanging up always at his door, proclaimed that “all bear’s grease sold in pots was a vile imposture,” and desired his customers to walk in “and see theirs with their own eyes, cut and weighed from the animal.” This seemed conclusive for two days; but on the third, the cunning opposition was again to the fore, with a placard “founded on the opinion of nine doctors of physic,” which stated that bear’s grease “obtained from the animal in a tamed or domesticated state, will not make anybody’s hair grow at all.” In consequence of which, he went on to say, “he has formed an establishment in Russia (where all the best bears come from), for catching them wild, cutting the fat off immediately, and potting it down for London consumption.” And the rogue actually ruined the business of his antagonist, without going to the expense of killing a single bear, by writing all over his house, “Licensed by the Imperial Government--Here, and at Archangel.”

George Robins, the auctioneer, was a profound believer in the value of advertisements, and exercised all his ingenuity and ability, both of which were considerable, to devise fresh schemes for attracting public notice. His powers of producing a good bill were remarkable, as was also his facility of description. Robins’s style has been so often commented upon, and his work so often copied and burlesqued, that it is hardly worth while our touching upon either him or his bills. As, however, such a book as this would be hardly complete without a reference to the puffing genius of modern days, we select a portion--and only a portion, mind--of his description of the Colosseum in Regent’s Park, one of the greatest failures of speculative enthusiasts known, which, despite Robins and his panegyric, and despite the strenuous efforts which have been made to cultivate an unwilling populace into believing in it as a place of amusement, is now being demolished to make way for a set of dwelling-houses planned upon the site on which was reared the building described by the poetically-fancied auctioneer as, among many other things, a

=CYCLOPÆAN STRUCTURE=,

WHERE DESCRIPTION FAILS TO PORTRAY

“Its eloquent proportions, Its mighty graduations,”

WHICH, EVEN WHEN SEEN,

“Thou seest not all, but piecemeal thou must break, To separate contemplation, the great whole.”

THE EXQUISITE PROPORTIONS OF

=THE CLASSIC PORTICO=,

One of the finest specimens of

=THE GREEK DORIC=,

TOGETHER WITH

“The Dome, the vast and wondrous Dome,”

WHICH PROUDLY

“-----------------------------Vies In air with earth’s chief structures,”

Win our admiration, while there is nothing of ancient or modern days that can compete with it either in

^Classic Elegance, Grandeur of Effect, or Beauty of Proportion;^

And it must remain to future ages a monument of the genius of the architect, as an

“Outshining and o’erwhelming edifice.”

The stupendous purpose for which the COLOSSEUM was erected is too well known to need description.

=THOUSANDS AND TENS OF THOUSANDS=

Having been attracted by

THE PICTURE OF LONDON,

Which covers the interior of the external wall,

=THE MODERN BABYLON=,

Which occupied the artist upwards of four years in delineating its endless details from the dome of St. Paul’s at the quiet hour of morning, when the buildings of this great metropolis were unobscured by smoke, and the early mists dispersed by the sun’s vicegerent power,--this picture now

“Stands within the Colosseum’s wall.”

THE BUILDING CONTAINS

=A GRAND SALOON OF ART=,

Surrounding the interior of the whole edifice,

“All musical in its immensities, Rich marbles--richer painting--”

Stored with productions of modern artists, models of ingenious machinery, and a variety of scientific experiments to attract the spectator, and is well calculated for any and every exhibition of an extensive nature.

“Enter--------------thy mind, Expanded by the genius of the spot, Has grown colossal!”

On the outside of the main building are magnificent Conservatories filled with every kind of exotic, and decorated with

FOUNTAINS AND JETS D’EAU,

Equalling in beauty the most celebrated

^Fountains of Versailles & St. Eldefonso^.

=Two Thousand Eight Hundred Persons=

HAVE PAID FOR ADMISSION DURING ONE DAY

To view this extraordinary and incomparable work of art.

=THE COLOSSEUM’S GRANDEUR=

ENCOMPASSED THEM WITH WONDER--A SUBLIME CREATIVE SPIRIT IN THIS WORLD OF MIRACLES.

It may be well to observe that continued success will be rendered certain by a change of scene, and the purchaser has only to call to his aid

=THE MAGIC INFLUENCE OF STANFIELD’S PENCIL=

To create a new sensation, and enlist thousands to partake of the refreshing delight created by his versatile and unrivalled talent. Indeed, it will not be requisite to tax ingenuity very greatly to think of an infinite variety of ways by which a large fortune may be made. It has for years past produced from

=Three to Five Thousand Pounds a Year=,

And this without any artificial aid, or so much of industry and tact as this wonderful building seems especially to have invited.

Robins’s eloquence very often led him to describe things as they were not, and now and again he had to recant and make amends. He is generally credited with having referred to a gallows which stood upon part of an estate, as a unique and elegant hanging wood, and thereby obtaining a considerably larger sum for the property than it was in any way worth. Among Robins’s many eccentricities this must not be reckoned, as the hanging-wood episode, though true in itself, belongs to an earlier time, the trick having been played during the last century. When a man gets credit for the possession of any peculiarity, every story that can be raked up of a suitable kind takes him for its originator or leading spirit, and innumerable tales were at one time current with regard to the great auctioneer, of which he was perfectly innocent. So it is in other things. What did Foote, Garrick, Sheridan, Hook, Sydney Smith, Hood, Barham, Rogers, Jerrold, and numerous other of our celebrated wits, know of a quarter the sayings and doings that have been ascribed to them? Little indeed, we fancy. But there are some things which Robins did say and do which have not been recorded. In answer to a lady who remarked to him that in his graphic descriptions he must have used up the entire dictionary, Robins said, “Madam, I’ll give five pounds to any charitable society you like to name if you can find me a word I have not used.” Mrs Macauley might have taken him at his word, and would doubtless have won the money, but the lady we speak of declined the contest. There is not much in this, except as showing to what an extent his powers of description led him. Having given one of his sayings, we will conclude with an item from his doings, a description of the villa and garden of W. Harrison, Esq., Q.C. We trust we shall cause no one to be discontented with his or her present abode by giving this description--rather do we hope that one of the new race of picturesque reporters may be tempted by it to study under Robins, and thereby improve his condition:--

In attempting an adequate representation of what has been aptly termed =A LITTLE HEAVEN UPON EARTH=,

Much of the difficulty Mr. ROBINS feared to encounter he is happily relieved from by the extraordinary renown which the late worthy possessor has imparted to this incomparable retreat.

“Thus far we sail before the wind,”

Exclaims the individual who is flattered by having been selected for this interesting Sale, but fear and trembling now succeeds in encountering the Herculean task of pourtraying the countless beauties that are congregated

=Within the Grounds of this Elysium=.

It would puzzle much higher talent than he can bring, adequately to describe this Landscape, but it must be attempted; and Mr. ROBINS prays that the reader will bear with him a little longer, under the assurance that condensity shall be his motto, at the same time avoiding that cloudy region entered by the witty Flaccus, who,

“Aiming at brevity became obscure.”

THE GROUNDS

Extend to near Five Acres, and the extraordinary tact that must have presided in arriving at this scene of perfection, must be viewed, it must be seen to feel and appreciate what seems to partake of Fairy Land. Mr. LOUDON has indulged the public with Twenty-two Vignettes and Plans to hand down to posterity a faint idea of

=The Velvet Ornamental lawn=,

On which is congregated the most rare and extensive assemblage of Plants and flowering Shrubs that is to be met with in England.

From all

THE FLORICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS

The treasures were quite sure to find a home at Cheshunt, indeed the late Proprietor’s judgment in the Cultivation of Rare and Valuable Plants was quite unique, and his Gardener, Mr. PRATT, a prototype of his employer. It would fatigue the reader to give in detail the host of Rare Plants that adorn these Grounds, the value of which is past belief--more than a Thousand Pounds have been consumed alone in rare Exotics; the masses of Growing Plants, the French Garden, and all this (by the way) is relieved and varied by

=THE ORNAMENTAL WATERS AND ISLAND=,

Varying and necessarily improving this beauteous scene. Perpetual breaks and peeps are contrived, by different views, to look on the Waters, in which Thousands of Gold and Silver Fish enjoy their “sportive gambols.” Correct judgment is made very manifest in the disposition of these Grounds, by avoiding the whole being seen, except by slow degrees. Then there are dispersedly dotted about throughout the Lawn--The Rustic Alcoves, the Chinese Temple, Grottos, and covered Seats, Orchidaceus and Fern Houses, and Aviary.

A Mount is devoted to the Show of Aloes during the Summer, rendering the ensemble most captivating; a Hermit’s Cave, covered with Ivy; a Gravel Walk, belted by American Borders of Rare Plants; a beautiful Grotto, adorned by a fine piece of Statuary; a Rustic Summer House, fitted up in the Indian style; a smaller Grotto, fitted in Stone, of grotesque and rustic masonry; in fact, everything that sagacity or the human mind could well conceive, seems to have been achieved here, to render this spot

=A PERFECT PARADISE.=

From the Terrace Walk that environs it, a perpetually interesting scene of the Lawn, in varied forms of beauty (the Church Steeple peeping out in the distance, to vary the scene) is disclosed, and is so ingeniously and cleverly managed that the deciduous Trees, during the Summer, afford constant protection from the heat of the sun, and during the Winter (being then naked) admit the genial warmth of the sun to keep dry the Gravel Walks.

From the canny North Country we get two bills, the first of which is likely to shake the belief of those who imagine that swindlers and impostors have little chance in the border counties, where the babies are said to be born with their wisdom teeth ready cut, and to “know their way about” before they are out of leading-strings. J. A. was fully possessed of his share of artfulness, and though his name has not come down to us, it being just the same in the bill as here printed, his initials were well known some years back, and his practice was very successful:--

THE WHOLE ART OF FORTUNE-TELLING, BY J----n A----k, BARTON.

* * * * *

_Deep in the dismal Regions, void of Light, Three Witches, for Consultation, meet to Night; So, sacred Sisters, your secret Mysteries state, The Witches leaders, and their great Powers relate._

* * * * *

WHO begs most respectfully to acquaint his Friends that he has, for the Benefit of the Public, commenced the above Business; and, from the long Time he had studied under the different Masters of the Magical Mysteries in the present Age, also, in all the ancient and modern Books, in Astrology, Nicromancy, Divinations, and all the magical Charms, Spells, Rites, Enchantments, and hidden Mysteries in past and future Events, flatters himself that he has become Proficient in his Art.

Hail, Medea, hail! if still he scorn the Spell, By Fate, I’ll force him to the Gates of Hell! Such potent Sorceries an Assyrian taught, As to a magic Charm the Drugs he wrought.

J. A. can break any Charm caused by Enchantment; can also immediately name the Planet under which a Person is born; and will also inform any Person whether he or she will be married, and to whom; and can inform all married Men, to their Satisfaction, in all the secret Transactions which they may suppose to have taken place with their Wives; can also conjure back any stolen Goods, and bewitch any Person or Animal who has done any one an Injury, &c. &c.

Hail, Hecate! and give my rising Spell Ev’n Appollonius’s Sorceries to excel: Bid my strong Witchery match ev’n Circe’s Skill, O’er the dire Rites,--my Mysteries fulfil.

J. A. also begs to add that he has not spared any Expence to make himself Master of all the magical Mysteries, and is confident of his own Abilities in being able to give every Satisfaction to those who may favour him with a Consultation will meet with due Attention, but their Letters must be post-paid, inclosing a Post-office Order for 5s. The Age of the Applicant must be stated. Persons attending will be charged 2s. only. J. A. is also a Dealer in Talismanick Charms, engraved with magical Characters, 10s. 6d. each.

A man who commences a sorcery business for the benefit of the public deserves to succeed, especially when he can break any charm caused by enchantment, conjure back stolen goods, and so play the avenger’s part as to bewitch any person or animal who has done any one an injury. It is a pity J. A. did not get some of his mysterious agents to put his lines a little in order. The other is a Tyneside advertisement, and shows also a partiality for verse--indeed consists of nothing else, if we except the name and address; but its theme is far more material than that of its companion. Unlike in the case of the publican of Wych Street, we will not assume that Mr Catcheside employed any one over the following effusion, of which he is welcome to all the credit:--

JOHN CATCHESIDE, GROCER & TEA-DEALER, BIGG-MARKET, NEWCASTLE.

YE gentlemen of town and country, A shop, next door to Whitfield’s entry, Is just fit up for your inspection, By Mr Catcheside’s direction; Good ladies, too, I crave your favours,-- To please you shall be my endeavours. Without the fairer sex are pleas’d, The mind of man is never eas’d. But ladies, pray, and gentlemen, Call, and I’ll please you if I can. I’ve Teas of all sorts you can mention-- To keep them good is my intention: All from the India-house direct, Warranted genuine you may expect; Which I do sell on lowest terms, And not as gentlemen let farms; I’ve Sugars too, the same to sweeten, As good as ever yet were eaten; Loaves, well refin’d as ’ere you saw, Which boiling water scarce will thaw. I’ve Treacle, Juice, and Sugar-Candy, And Turkey Coffee strong as brandy; The very best Plantation ditto, With Fry’s and White’s best Patent Cocoa, And Churchman’s Patent Chocolate,-- All which I sell at a low rate. I’ve fine Tobacco, Patent Shag, Twist, Saffron Cut, and Common Rag; And Snuff, whatever kind you choose, To clear your brain, and warm your nose; Zant Currants, commonly call’d Spice, Orange and Lemon Peel, and Rice; Malaga Raisins, too, I sell, With Bloom, and Sun, and Muscatell, With which you well may stuff your wigs; Or here’s French Plumbs, or Turkey Figs; Or Prunes, if you do think them fitter, With Almonds, Jordan, Shell, and Bitter; Nutmegs, Cloves, Cinnamon, and Mace, Good as you’ll get at any place; Season your syllabubs and custards; For beef, I’ve Vinegar and Mustards. All kinds of Pepper, too, I’ll sell ye, Macaroni and Vermacelli; Anchovies, Cassia, and Cassia-buds, And many other sorts of goods, Prepar’d for puddings, pies, and sauces:-- Come, buy them cheap, ye bonny lasses! And if your birds for seeds do gape, I have Canary, Hemp, and Rape; And further down you need not wander For Annis, Carraway, and Coriander; Of Ginger, too, I’m never scant, For any purpose you may want. I’ve Sago fine, and Capers both, And famous Barley for your broth! Salt Petre, Bay and Basket Salt, To make your hams without a fault; With Picked Isinglass and Staple, To make your ale fit for the table:-- Then what can man desire more, Than beef, and broth, and ale in store? But dinner’s done; come, draw the table, Here’s Soap to wash while you are able; But if you think that will not do, Here’s Poland Starch and Powder Blue; And if you’d have some coarser washes, I have good Pearl and Comby Ashes; Should you incline to wash by night, I’ve Candles, too, will shew you light. To spin dry wool you need not toil, I’ve plenty Whale and Florence Oil. Set by your wheels, your tongs, and poker And paint your nooks with Yellow Ochre. Put all your dye-pots to one side, When with fresh Indigo supplied; Then paint above your lintel-head And chimney-pieces with Black-Lead. If still materials you do lack, I’ve Fuller’s Earth and Ivory Black, Logwood, Copperas, and Whiting, Yea many more things not worth writing. Once more your favours I solicit, I’m ready waiting for a visit; Most due attendance will be given From seven at morn till eight at even; Or later, if it seems expedient, By your most humble and obedient,

JOHN CATCHESIDE.

Getting back to London, we come upon a bill of the kind now and then adopted with regard to posters, the idea in which is to convey a different notion at sight from that which is given by close inspection. In the following the plan has been carried out with great nicety, the author’s endeavour being to make the notice look like a Government proclamation, and as one of the best specimens of the kind we have ever seen it is presented to the reader:--

PROCLAMATION!

^Whereas^,

It being Our Royal Will and Pleasure that our well-beloved, trusty and loyal subject HARRY JOHNSON, should for the Amusement of our well-beloved, trusty and loyal subjects of Hoxton and its Vicinity, give a grand entertainment on ASH WEDNESDAY, the 9th of February, 1842, for the BENEFIT of Himself, when he trusts from the Talent he has selected on this occasion, and the well-known respectability and celebrity of all parties, he cannot fail of securing a TREAT

TO THE =British Public=.

H. J. feels proud and happy to announce that many Professional Friends have, in the most handsome manner, proffered their valuable Services: they are enabled to do this with greater facility as no other Place of Amusement in London is open on that Evening. Their Names will transpire in future bills. Miss PHILLIPS will on this night sing, in her usual sweet and inimitable style,

WANTED

=A GOVERNESS=

The Beneficiare will also sing,

FOR THE

First time, the Young

=PRINCE OF WALES=.

A Gentleman has kindly consented on this occasion to sing an Entire New Comic Song, to be called “Comfort is all my View; or

SALARY

Is no object!!” Mr. H. PARKER will also sing his much admired ballad of Had I

=£1,000 A-YEAR!!!=

A Lady will sing

NO FOLLOWERS ALLOWED.

ALL APPLICATIONS TO BE MADE (FOR TICKETS) ON OR BEFORE

ASH WEDNESDAY, FEBRU. 9, 1842,

AT THE OFFICE

ROYAL BRITANNIA SALOON, HOXTON OLD TOWN.

=The Ceremony of IN-STALL-ING to commence at Half Past SIX o’clock Precisely.=

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!!!

The attention of readers will probably be attracted by the advertisement so elaborately concocted and carefully worked out. If its promoters received any extra support because of it, they certainly deserved what they got, as the plan is difficult to connect with any but large bills. The next item we have brings us to the year 1853, and is again from the county of Northumberland. It is far more pretentious than the composition of Mr John Catcheside, but by no means so successful. It is from the pen of a general shopkeeper, who evidently considered he had done something when he had been through his proofs, seen this to press, and forwarded copies to unsuspecting, and, as it turned out, unsympathising, families about G----, a small place not very far from Newcastle:--

To the inhabitants of G---- and its neighbourhood.

The present age is teeming with advantages which no preceding era in the history of mankind has afforded to the human family. New schemes are projecting to enlighten and extend civilisation, Railways have been projected and carried out by an enterprising and spirited nation, while Science in its gigantic power (simple yet sublime) affords to the human mind so many facilities to explore its rich resources, the Seasons roll on in their usual course producing light and heat, the vivifying rays of the sun and the fructifying influences of nature producing food and happiness to the Sons of Toil, while to the people of G---- and its neighbourhood a rich and extensive variety of Fashionable Goods is to be found in my Warehouse, which have just been selected with the greatest care. The earliest visit is requested to convey to the mind an adequate idea of the great extent of his purchases, comprising, as it does, all that is elegant and useful, cheap and substantial to the light-hearted votaries of Matrimony, the Matrons of Reflection, the Man of Industry, and the Disconsolate Victims of Bereavement.

This composition having been printed and distributed, the author waited impatiently for its powerful effect, and when to his great astonishment he discovered that it had produced none, he, with the irritability that nearly always accompanies neglected genius, resolved to get back and destroy every copy of his essay, and thereby deny to posterity what his own generation could not appreciate. Fortunately for ourselves, and for ages yet unborn, a copy was preserved, and printed in Notes and Queries.

Most dwellers for any time in London remember Lord Chief Baron Nicholson and his Judge and Jury Society, which used to be held at the Coal Hole in the Strand. Virtuous readers may shudder at the mention of such a place; but time was when the deliberations and decisions of the jury, as well as the directions of the judge and the peculiarities of the witnesses, were productive of mirth independent of double entendre among an audience composed of anything but roysterers and howling cads. In such halcyon days, when Nicholson was in the flesh, looking much more like a chief baron than nine-tenths of the possessors of the title ever did, the following handbill was printed:--

The Lord Chief Baron

NICHOLSON

Begs to inform his best friends, the Public, that he and the learned Gentlemen of the JUDGE AND JURY SOCIETY, have left the Garrick’s Head in Bow Street, and now hold their Forensic Sittings at the celebrated COAL HOLE TAVERN, Fountain Court, Strand, every Evening.

A JUDGE!--and in a Coal Hole too! Quoth rustic John, I can’t believe thee. That sounds too funny to be true, Come NICHOLSON, now don’t deceive me.

I wont deceive thee in the path, So at the ancient Coal Hole meet me, BLACKSTONE and COKE burn on the hearth, And LAW flares up, my lad, to greet thee.

DO NOT FORGET TO REMEMBER THE COAL HOLE IN THE STRAND.

Law was the proprietor of the establishment, and he “flared up” to some tune, so far as the production of suppers required flaring. And suppers were both numerous and excellent at the Coal Hole; the stewed or scalloped oyster, the devilled kidney, the broiled bone, and the modest “rabbit” receiving considerable attention during the progress of the mock trials. Subsequently the Coal Hole became a resort for journalists and actors, who used to be admitted to a snug old room behind the bar; but all that is changed now, an ambitious landlord having modernised the place and driven forth its old habitués. Not by violence or through incivility, but by means of plate-glass, electro tankards, and other goods, the unwonted and unwelcome aspect of which has made wanderers of the old warm-hearted coterie. Why will people “restore” and improve the few comfortable old taverns still left about London, and drive honest folk from the snug and unpretending corners they have occupied for years? This same restoration is shortsighted and impolitic. The houses become nondescript; they are too modern, and perhaps too respectable, for the old customers, not glaring and gassy enough for the new; and so they stand, with just sufficient about them to remind us of the joys that are past, and not enough to tempt us to renew them in the future.

Turning from taverns, coal-holey and otherwise, we have finally to notice that kind of advertising which is the result of an attempt to make profit out of others’ misfortunes. At the time, but a very few years back, of the Overend and Gurney failure, an enterprising linen-draper in the North-West district of London put forth the following handbill (p. 555), which was of large size, surrounded by a thick black mourning border, and which, in addition to being given away, was sent about by post. For reasons which are obvious, we have changed the names, and have no hesitation in giving an opinion that the proceeding was a very sharp bit of business, worthy of the hero of the wooden nutmegs.

It was followed by a long list of the goods to be sold, with the market prices and those at which they were offered, the practice of making up two sets of figures on goods having been found very efficacious of late years. This brings us well up to the present time, and as that is quite capable of taking care of itself without any assistance from us, we will conclude, in the hope that, though we have perforce passed many interesting specimens by, our selection, considering the space at command, has not been in any way injudicious.

The Overend Gurney & Co. Disaster.

LAMENTABLE CASE OF RUIN AND DEATH.

=THE “STANDARD” of the 29th ultimo, truly observes--=

“=Difficult indeed would it be to exaggerate the extent of the mischief that was done by the fall of the great house which had for generations stood firm as a rock * * * * nor would it be easy to adequately describe the woe and desolation, the loss and ruin, consequent upon the suspension and disastrous liquidation of the Company.=”

A more distressing case than the one in question it is impossible to conceive.--It is briefly told.--An old-established Linen Draper of the City of London, (Mr. JOB HUCKABACK), had invested the Savings of a life-time in the Overend Gurney Scheme. The result is known. Still his Business remained, and he might have struggled on, but further calls being imminent, his last hope was crushed, so, Bankrupt and broken-hearted, he died,--leaving a wife and five young children to the mercy of fate.--

The Trade Creditors have done what they can by waiving all claims upon the Estate, and have generously resolved that the Stock shall be sold for the benefit of the Widow and Children.

THE STOCK, WHICH IS HIGHLY CHOICE AND VALUABLE, HAS BEEN ENTRUSTED TO

=MR. CHARLES MARTEL=,

With prompt Orders TO REALISE AT ONCE ON ANY TERMS.

THE FIRST GRAND SALE OF SELECTED GOODS WILL BE HELD IN THE Large Assembly Room of the ---- Hotel, N.W. (☞ Ladies may avoid passing through the Hotel, by presenting enclosed Card to Messenger at Private Door.)

On Monday, 1st, Tuesday, 2nd, Wednesday, 3rd, and Thursday, 4th March, From Ten a.m. till Dusk each Day, closing on Thursday, at 5 p.m., prompt, not a minute later.

The Sale will be by Private Treaty, thus affording Ladies leisure to freely inspect. Although prices are quoted as a guide, NO OFFER WILL BE REJECTED, AS EVERYTHING MUST BE SOLD IN THE BRIEF TIME SPECIFIED.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter XIX

AMERICAN AND COLONIAL ADVERTISEMENTS.

In such a go-ahead nation as the United States, it is only natural that advertising should be a very important feature of its business arrangements; and in perusing most of the papers which have travelled across the Atlantic, we find that our cousins have what are called much broader notions concerning the duties of advertisements than we have. The word broader we use in its conventional sense, and without any wish to take responsibility upon ourselves; for the so-called broader view is, after all, only the view which will be found expressed in those of our pages which contain notices published a hundred years ago. So that perhaps, after all, the broader view is our modern view; for it is, or certainly should be, the improved view. In course of time the American press may adopt the plan now in use here so far as regards all the papers which we consider representative, that of having an outward and visible show of decency in the advertisement columns, no matter what darkness or danger lurks beneath. With very few exceptions, the papers which come from the United States--we refer not to the hole-and-corner but to the high-class, which are widely read and disseminated among family circles--contain advertisements which would be rejected by the gutter journals of this country. A hundred years ago, as we have said and instanced, our papers were not at all particular, so long as they could get advertisements, what they took; now a sense of what is right and proper compels them to refuse many notices which would be highly paid for--would be paid any price for--and in time the American press will doubtless follow the self-abnegating example. The broadened view we think, therefore, is ours, yet our style is often referred to as narrow-minded. The narrow mind is that which sacrifices its honour and credit in its greed for immediate profit and hunger after the almighty dollar.

For many reasons there is a great difficulty in dealing with American advertisements. Sometimes they are too long for quotation, at other times they are too broad; and very often one is not quite sure whether or not it is a really bona fide advertisement he is reading, or only an expression of gratitude from an editor for the favours he has received or fondly anticipates. American editors have peculiar notions on the subject of advertisements and the duties of advertisers. In a New York journal which boldly announces itself as the American Gentleman’s Newspaper, there is, or used to be, an editorial notice which informs all whom it most concerns, that, so as to meet the requirements of the family circle, and so that the paper may be left upon every gentleman’s breakfast-table, the use of the name of the Deity is expressly forbidden in the advertising or other columns. We quote from memory, but if these are not the exact words, the line of argument--if argument such a non sequitur can be called--is identical with that used by Mr Wilkes, the proprietor and editor of this model and gentlemanly paper. It would be well, however, if the American lady’s newspaper erred in no greater particular than the American gentleman’s does. For the honour of America it is to be sincerely hoped that its ladies know nothing of the sheets which are flaunted here with the names of women as the editors, and which are said to be written especially for women. It is hard to believe that any sane creature, much more a woman, could write such festering scurrility, such fatuous blasphemy, and such shameless indecency and advocacy of open adultery as appear in the columns of one at least of these women’s journals; but it is easy to imagine that a few besotted females, suffering from erotic and other dementia, should exhibit themselves to the scornful gaze of the virtuous or the only moderately vicious for the purpose of obtaining notoriety--far easier than to believe that the women of America are the readers of and subscribers to these papers and their opinions. We are quite sure that no woman worthy of the name would look a second time at the organ of Victoria C. Woodhull and Tennie C. Claflin--quite as sure as that the two persons we have named are, with their followers, quite unfit to be regarded as women. We have referred to this paper and its “editors” because it and they represent a class of journals and journalists which are, unfortunately for Americans, too apt to be taken as standard representatives of the type, and from no desire to accord them the spurious celebrity they so anxiously covet.

Still, without wishing to impute anything like iniquity to American newspapers generally, it must be admitted that the vast majority of them have rather lax notions of propriety, and their motto being “Get money,” they are apt to ignore the existence of ill in any advertisement, provided the presenter of it has his “pile” ready, and will “come down handsome.” This is evident throughout the whole of the transatlantic news world; and though there are, we feel bound and are glad to admit, very honourable exceptions, they are but the exceptions which prove the rule. As the editors and proprietors generally accuse each other, they cannot feel annoyed if we, standing afar off, make our notes according to what they give us. If they prefer to feel angry, however, we shall not stand in their way; but doubtless the majority are too intent on getting money to care much for what is said about them. Indeed there are many who exult in the notion of making capital by all kinds of advertisements, from the puff preliminary to the nauseating display of vile quackery or undisguised immorality, and vary this with agreeable little interludes in the way of black-mail. In several American newspapers open and undisguised announcements have been published that their columns are to be bought, and that for a price they will advocate any cause or take any side of a disputed question.

But throughout all this there is a great spice of humour, and in the general run of American advertisements it is much to be feared, and only natural to assume, that a stricter code of morality would result in a vast increase of dulness, the general concomitant of prim respectability. Yet it is possible to be wise as well as witty, and even now a good percentage of American advertisers prove this. From these we shall endeavour to select our stock, and so give all the humour without intruding the unpleasantness, except where it is absolutely necessary for the purpose of giving a fair idea of the American system. A good instance of ingenuity is that of the grocer in Pennsylvania, who on the fence of a graveyard inscribed in large white letters, “Use Jones’s bottled ale if you would keep out of here.” Grave subjects are often chosen as opportunities for advertising, one thing frequently offered being “Port wine as pure as the tears which fall upon a sister’s grave.” A firm engaged in the “statuary line” state that “those who buy tombstones of us look with pride and satisfaction upon the graves of their friends;” and from a large upholstery establishment the following emanates:--

Their parlor furniture is elegant, Their bedroom furniture is rich, Their mattresses are downy, Their coffins are comfortable.

There is, after all, not much opportunity for the display of novelty in advertisements nowadays; but a merchant in Newark, New York State, succeeded very well by leaving his column entirely blank with the exception of this note, in very small type, at the bottom: “This space was sold to A. E. Brennan and Co., but as their business is sufficiently brisk already they decline to use it.” This anecdote in its progress has been related of most large houses in or about New York and Boston, but Brennan was the man who gave rise to it. Quite as business-like, and rather more cynical, was the Ohio tradesman who, in large print, gave the following forth: “Ministers of the Gospel supplied with goods at cost, if they agree to mention the fact to their congregations.” And though the next is a purely private communication, the author of it was evidently a born advertiser: “If the party who took a fancy to my overcoat was influenced by the inclemency of the weather, all right; but if by commercial considerations, I am ready to negotiate for its return.” In an advertisement headed “Full-dress funeral,” which appears in a Philadelphia paper, is the intimation that “all the gentlemen friends of the late Mr Smith desirous of participating in the funeral will appear in full-dress suit and white gloves at Happy Hall, at nine o’clock a.m. on Friday morning, Jan. 29, and proceed from thence in a body to the house of the deceased.” This peculiarity of a.m. in the morning reminds us of the announcement on a bridge at Denver, Colorado, which states that “no vehicle drawn by more than one animal is allowed to cross this bridge in opposite directions at the same time;” though our intention, while touching on funerals, was to give the subjoined letter from an enterprising undertaker in Illinois to a sick man: “Dear sir, having positive proof that you are rapidly approaching Death’s gate, I have, therefore, thought it not imprudent to call your attention to the inclosed advertisement of my abundant stock of ready-made coffins, and desire to make the suggestion that you signify to your friends a wish for the purchase of your burial outfit at my establishment.” And thereon followed an elaborate list of the essentials to a first-class funeral, the reader having nothing to do but to supply the corpse. Apropos of supply, the following from a Chicago confectioner’s notice is worthy of remark: “Families supplied by the quart or gallon.” This ostensibly refers to olives, but to us it seems very suggestive of olive branches. Occasionally, in running through the papers, one is surprised at the appetite of a lady who wants “to take a gentleman for breakfast and tea;” at the single-mindedness of a boarding-house keeper who advertises that “single gentlemen are furnished with pleasant rooms, also one or two gentlemen with wives;” or the boldness of a merchant who, in a free country, openly gives notice that there is “wanted--a woman to sell on commission.”

We have already referred to the “editorials” which have a more or less remote connection with advertisements, and now select two examples with which to illustrate our meaning. They are of very opposite characters, and will serve to give both extremes, between which all sorts of puffs may find classification. The first is very common. Says the editor of a Yankee paper:--

A correspondent wants to know what kind of a broom the young lady in the novel used when she swept back the ringlets from her classic brow. We don’t know, and shouldn’t answer if we did. We only undertake to answer queries of a practical and useful character. If our correspondent, who we presume is a gentleman, had asked who was the best and most popular hatter in the city, we would have promptly and unhesitatingly answered, James H. Chard of Broadwalk.

This tradesman had evidently supplied, or promised to supply, a new covering for the editorial head, with perhaps a little light refreshment as well. The other specimen is far more deliberate, and at the same time more respectable. It is from a Buffalo paper of half-a-dozen years back, and is not at all unlike the very earliest advertisement recommendations of our own country:--

We are assured that the firm of Eastman & Kendall, 65, Hanover Street, Boston, Mass., advertised in our columns, is trustworthy and reliable. For 10 cents they send a patent pen fountain and a check describing an article to be sold for $1. Their club system of selling goods is becoming quite popular, particularly with the ladies. It is worthy of a trial.

Two specimens of editorial personal advertisements will doubtless suffice. One was published by an Illinois journalist on assuming the duties of chief of the staff, and it gives a very good idea of the plan upon which he intended to “run” his paper. It says:--

Sensational, distressing details of revolting murders and shocking suicides respectfully solicited. Bible class presentations and ministerial donation parties will be “done” with promptness and despatch. Keno banks and their operations made a speciality. Accurate reports of Sunday School anniversaries guaranteed. The local editor will cheerfully walk 17 miles after Sunday school to see and report a prize fight. Funerals and all other melancholy occasions written up in a manner to challenge admiration. Horse races reported in the highest style of the reportorial art. Domestic broils and conjugal felicities sought for with untiring avidity. Police court proceedings and sermons reported in a manner well calculated to astonish the prisoner, magistrate, and preacher.

The other is the opposite of the foregoing, and was penned under very different circumstances. It is from a Keithsburg journal, and first saw the light under the head reserved for notices of deaths:--

About two and a-half years ago we took possession of this paper. It was then in the very act of pegging out, having neither friends, money, nor credit. We tried to breathe into it the breath of life; we put into it all our own money and everybody else’s we could get hold of; but it was no go; either the people of Keithsburg don’t appreciate our efforts, or we don’t know how to run a paper. We went into the business with confidence, determined to run it or burst. We have busted. During our connection with the Observer we have made some friends and numerous enemies. The former will have our gratitude while life lasts. The latter are affectionately requested to go to the deuce.

Occasionally these advertising notices take a widely different form, and refer to the benefits which are to be found from a use of the columns in which they appear. Take the following as an instance of the kind of work we mean:--

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS has the largest circulation of any daily paper published in the United States, and, with the exception of one in England and one in France, the largest in the world. We will contract for advertisements in the NEWS upon the following terms: Three (3) cents per line for every (10) ten thousand of our circulation. Every bill when presented to be accompanied with the sworn affidavit of the pressman who prints the paper, the clerk who delivers the paper, and the cashier who receives the money. No paper to be counted as circulation except those that are actually sold and paid for. Believing this to be the most fair and equitable plan ever offered to advertisers, we make the proposition.

This is a fair and equitable idea which none but the proprietors of rival journals could object to. And that rivals do have their say about each other’s advertisements, the following article, which is called “Ensnaring the Simple,” and which at one stroke deals two blows--one in the journalistic and the other in the electioneering interest--will show. It is from a New York daily, and runs thus: “The Sunday Mercury is published by Cauldwell & Whitney, Editors and Proprietors. Its senior editor is William Cauldwell, late Senator from the IXth District, comprising Westchester, Putnam, and Rockland Counties, and now the Democratic candidate for re-election. From yesterday’s issue of that Sunday Mercury, we copy the following advertisements, omitting only the addresses of the respective advertisers:--

TWO YOUNG MEN, residents of New-York, of some means, are desirous of forming the acquaintance of two ladies between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two, with a view to sociability and quiet enjoyment. To those that are worthy, pecuniary assistance will be willingly rendered, if necessary. Those employed in some light occupation preferred. Address, appointing interview, ---- and ----, Mercury office.

* * * * *

A GENTLEMAN, aged twenty-five, would be pleased to form the acquaintance of a young lady, or widow, under twenty-five years of age. Must be educated, and of good reputation. One engaged during the day preferred. A desirable party will meet with a permanent friend. Disreputable parties need not answer this. Address in confidence for ten days, ---- ----, Mercury office.

* * * * *

A GENTLEMAN of means, alone in this city, desires the acquaintance of a respectable, genteel young lady of refinement, who is, like himself, friendless and alone; the most honorable secrecy observed. Address, with full particulars, ----, Mercury office, 128 Fulton-st., New-York.

* * * * *

A FRENCH GENTLEMAN, newly arrived in this country and lonely, wishes to form the acquaintance of a lady who could prove as true a friend to him as he would be to her. Address, in confidence, as discretion will be absolute, ----, Mercury office.

* * * * *

A YOUNG GENTLEMAN would like to make the acquaintance of an affectionate and sociable young lady who would appreciate a true friend; one residing in Brooklyn preferred. Address ----, box 3, 761 New-York P.O.

* * * * *

A GENTLEMAN OF MEANS wishes to make the acquaintance of a young lady of sixteen to eighteen years (blonde preferred); one who would appreciate a companion and friend may find one by addressing ----, Mercury office.

* * * * *

A YOUNG WIDOW would like to make the acquaintance of an elderly gentleman of means, who would be willing to assist her, in return for true friendship. No triflers need answer. Address ----, Station E.

* * * * *

A GENTLEMAN, thirty years of age, with some leisure time at his disposal, would like the acquaintance of a handsome young lady, resident of Brooklyn. Address, stating age and other particulars, ----, Mercury office.

* * * * *

A KIND, ELDERLY GENTLEMAN, a stranger, wishes to enjoy the society of an agreeable young lady. Address ----, Mercury office.

* * * * *

A GENTLEMAN of position desires the society of a young lady or widow. Would afford moderate pecuniary aid to a respectable and deserving person. Address, with particulars, appointing interview, ----, Mercury office.

* * * * *

A STRANGER in New-York desires a few lady correspondents whom he can call upon, and who would be pleased to accompany him to theatres, &c. Address ----, New-York University.

* * * * *

A YOUNG MAN of refined taste would like to meet with a good-looking lady (not above twenty) who is engaged during the day. Address, appointing interview, ----, No. 4, Mercury office.

* * * * *

A LADY would like to meet with a gentleman who would thoroughly appreciate her exclusive society. For particulars, address ----, Box 2, No. 688 Broadway.

“These are but fair specimens of columns of such advertisements which have for years appeared in the successive issues of The Mercury. The publishers put over them the head ‘Matrimonial,’ but the advertisers do not countenance that fraud. They use The Mercury and pay for it as though it were a house of infamous resort; and, if there be any moral difference between permitting this use and keeping a house of ill-fame, we cannot see it. We do not doubt that at least One Thousand foolish girls have been ruined through the instrumentality of these shameful advertisements. Must not that be a monstrous dispensation of justice which, while Rosenzweig is (most righteously) sent to State Prison, should send Cauldwell to the Senate? What do you think of it? Electors of Westchester, Putnam, and Rockland Counties! read the above advertisements carefully, and say whether you can aid the election of Cauldwell to the Senate without sharing his guilt? Do not pretend ignorance of his iniquities: for above is the evidence which no man can gainsay. There are more such in this week’s issue, as there have been in every issue of that sheet for years. Fathers, brothers, pure men of every degree! read those infamous advertisements carefully, and then judge if you can vote to send their publisher to the Senate!” This is all very well, and extremely virtuous, but in the high-class daily journal from which it is taken there are plenty of advertisements of a character anything but beyond reproach. We are far from wishing to uphold the character of the Mercury, which is no more and no less than a Pandarus among papers, but the axiom, “Physician, heal thyself,” will apply to the champion of outraged innocence just quoted.

An astonishingly elaborate way of bringing the “puff pars” of enterprising and liberal tradesmen under immediate notice is shown in a weekly, possessed of considerable notoriety, that is published in California. This paper, the San Francisco Newsletter, has several times with pleasing candour informed the world that its opinions and advocacy are within easy purchase. Which means that those who do not think its friendship worth buying had better beware of its animosity. For those who doubt this we reproduce the following, which was probably placed on the front page of the Newsletter because the directors of the company referred to refused to patronise that organ of publicity, and which has now been running for some time:--

A PERMANENT PARAGRAPHIC ADVERTISEMENT.

[RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE SPRING VALLEY WATER WORKS.]

=A miner’s inch of water= is about twenty thousand gallons. The usual price for an inch of water in the mines is ten cents. The Spring Valley Company sells water in large quantities at seventy-five cents per thousand gallons, or at fifteen dollars seventy-five cents per inch--which is one hundred and fifty-seven times the price which miners pay. Furnished in small quantities to housekeepers, the Company charges from thirty to fifty dollars an inch--five hundred times the miners’ rates.

IGNOTUS.

The Newsletter was originally known in England as the vehicle of a vein of humour peculiar even in America, and mainly dependent upon a contempt for all religious formalities and observances, an affectation of atheism, and an evident desire to render all those things ridiculous that believers hold most sacred. Through all this ran a vein of ability which even those who objected most to the degradation of it were bound to admit, and the smart utterances of the chief writer on the staff were not only quoted widely throughout America, but now and again found supporters among advanced journalists in England. How different now is the Newsletter! Its flippancy is as rampant as ever, but its attempts to make fun out of the doctrines of faith in general and Christianity in particular are of the dreariest, while in place of the cleverness which once made its columns readable there is a scurrility worthy of the typical Stabber or Rowdy Journal. And the more its ability becomes deteriorated, the more do its abuse, its blasphemy, and its blackmailing qualities exhibit themselves. It is evident that the old leader has departed, and left in his place one whose servile imitation must have been his best credential for the office of successor.[47] But it was in reference to the Newsletter’s advertisements that we commenced; though they are in truth so mixed up with its other matter that the distinction is subtle indeed. The construction of the paper is unique. Each page is complete in itself, and in the “backs” and “gutters”--the inside margins, in fact--there are numerous advertisements. The chief peculiarity, however, of the paper is that of spreading its puffs and notices about among the ordinary matter. The following extract will give some idea of the prevailing plan:--

“=Tell me=, O, thou ancient warrior, How it is you look so strong. Full well I know, for four-score years You’ve wandered round--say, am I wrong?”

“I have lived for four-score years, sir, Drinking naught but Cutter’s best. If you want to live as long, sir, I advise you to invest.”

* * * * *

=Shortening a Telegram.=--A gentleman took the following telegram to a telegraph office:--“Mrs Brown, Liverpool street.--I announce with grief the death of uncle James. Come quickly to read will. I believe we are his heirs.--John Black.” The clerk, having counted the words, said, “There are two words too many, sir.” “All right, cut out ‘with grief,’” was the reply.

* * * * *

=The other afternoon= I strayed, About the hour of four, To see if in the town I’d find A first-class carpet store.

I wandered round for a long time, Until a friend did tell Where was the only place in town-- The store of Plum & Bell.

* * * * *

=As an early morning train= stopped at the station, an old gentleman with a cheerful countenance stepped out on the platform, and inhaling the fresh air enthusiastically exclaimed, “Isn’t this invigorating?” “No, sir, it’s Auchterarder,” replied the conscientious porter. The cheerful old gentleman went back to his seat in the carriage.

* * * * *

=All that my pining spirit= in its youth Has pictured forth of excellence, is she; The same ideal figure full of truth, Alike in gentleness and purity: By Bradley & Rulofson made divine. Oh how I love to worship at her shrine!

* * * * *

=The Man Who Struck Him.=--“Show me the man who struck O’Docherty,” shouted a pugnacious little Irishman at an election; “show me the man who struck O’Docherty, and I’ll--” “I am the man who struck O’Docherty,” said a big, brawny fellow, stepping to the front; “and what have you to say about it?” “Och, sure,” answered the small one, suddenly collapsing, “and didn’t you do it well!”

* * * * *

=We cannot stay= thy footsteps, Time. Thy flight no hand may bind Save His, whose foot is on the sea, Whose voice is in the wind.

Yet we can make a cloudy day As bright as in sunshine, And drive the demon care away With draughts of Gerke Wine.

* * * * *

=Mr. John Owens=, who lately died at Jackson, aged 114, was in some respects a remarkable man. He blushingly admitted that he had used whisky since he was ten years old, and had chewed tobacco and smoked, more or less, for one hundred and three years, but he never claimed that he had seen Washington.

* * * * *

=Wherever Minerva=, the Goddess of Wisdom, presides, or Pomona, or Ceres require book work to be done, there will be found the school and office furniture made by Gilbert & Moore. It is universally acknowledged to be the best that is made in this or any other State. If once used, no other desks, stools, forms, garden seats, etc., will ever meet with any favour. Their patent school desk, with seat attached, is the most perfect thing we ever saw, and is as strong as it is neat.

* * * * *

=A Yankee editor= has just had his family reinforced, whereupon he indulges in the following poetic outburst:--

“Ring out, wild bells--and tame ones too-- Ring out the lover’s moon! Ring out the little slips and socks, Ring in the bib and spoon! Ring out the Muse, ring in the nurse-- Ring in the milk and water! Away with paper, pens, and ink-- My daughter, oh, my daughter!”

* * * * *

=The philosopher’s stone= has not yet been discovered, but modern science has found out a means by which the energy of youth can be imparted to those who have long passed the meridian of life. Such a boon to mankind is the Elixir Damiana, that the well known Doctor Jose Juniga, from whose prescription it is made, has earned a name not soon to be forgotten. The Elixir can be procured at Chas. Langley’s, the agent, and at all drug stores.

* * * * *

=Edmund Munger=, speaking of the time when he was a boy, says it was the custom of school children as you passed a school-house, to make a bow; but in these later days, as you pass a school-house, you must keep your eye peeled, or you will get a snowball or a brickbat at the side of your head.

* * * * *

=Help me to sing=, ye muses Nine, In praises of that house on Pine, Which by its name, the Saddle Rock, All praise and say the finest stock Of oysters in the town are there; Both raw, and cooked with greatest care.

* * * * *

=Mr. Redpath= applied to Mr. Warner, author of “My Summer in a Garden,” to enter the lecturing field. The genial author replied that there was less prospect now than ever of his consenting to do so. “It seems to me,” he wrote, “that the older I grow, the wiser I grow.”

* * * * *

=The Six-Mile House=, on the San Bruno Road, is the favourite calling place on the road. No one ever thinks of passing without stopping to have a word with Harry Blanken.

* * * * *

=Twenty-eight= different kinds of “bitters” sold in Rhode Island for “strictly medicinal use” are undergoing analysis by the State Chemist from an excise point of view.

This is the best part of the paper at the present time, and the best part of this--that is, the most original--is formed by the advertisements. There must now and again be a great run upon that edition of “Joe Miller” the proprietor keeps in his room, when the “exchanges” refuse to give out new or second-hand humorous paragraphs. We will conclude this section of our cousins’ peculiarities with the following, picked out from a Boston sheet, where it was nestled close by the biggest of the advertisements:--

=Keep on Advertising.=

Don’t fear to have a small advertisement by the side of a larger competing one. The big one can’t eat it up.

Which, freely translated, means, “Keep on advertising, and don’t be afraid. We’ll take you, big or little, so long as you have the money, and of course we’re quite disinterested.”

In the year 1795, an English paper, speaking of the transatlantic journalism of the time, says: “As one proof of the commerce and trade of America, there are four daily papers printed in the city of New York; and it is not uncommon to enumerate 350 advertisements in a single paper. The price of an advertisement is from 1s. to 1s. 6d., and a paper sells for one penny. But what injures the beauty and authenticity of their papers is the want of a little red mark at one corner of the sheet; a blessing that has been withheld from them since the imprudent declaration of independence.” The last remark is evidently satirical. It was sixty years after this that we got rid of our glorious red mark. But we have an advertisement of some years before the declaration of independence, which is subjoined:--

Bush Creek, Frederick’s County, Maryland, Oct. 11, 1771.

RUN away from the subscriber, a Servant Maid named Sarah Wilson, but has changed her name to Lady Susanna Carolina Matilda, which made the public believe that she was her Majesty’s Sister; she has a blemish in her right Eye, black rolled Hair, stoops in her shoulders, makes a common practice of writing and marking her cloaths with a Crown and a B. Whoever secures the said Servant Woman, or takes her home, shall receive five Pistoles, besides all cost and charges.

WILLIAM DEVALL.

I entitle Michael Dalton to search the city of Philadelphia and from thence to Charles-Town, for the said Woman.

W. D.

Sarah Wilson, who was quite an extraordinary adventuress, had been lady’s-maid to the Hon. Miss Vernon, sister to Lady Grosvenor, and whilst in her service found means to obtain admittance into the royal apartments, where she broke open a cabinet and robbed it of some jewellery of value. For this she was apprehended, tried, and sentenced to death, but through the interposition of her former mistress was reprieved, and transported to Maryland, where on her arrival she was exposed for sale, and purchased by the Mr Devall above named. She soon, however, managed to make her escape into Virginia, travelled through that colony, and through North into South Carolina. When at a proper distance from Mr Devall, she assumed the title of Princess Susanna Carolina Matilda, and passed herself off as a sister to the Queen. She was dressed in a manner likely to favour the deception, and as she had with her part of the stolen jewels, and a miniature portrait of the Queen, which by some means she had managed to conceal before her trial and during her subsequent journey, she succeeded in deceiving many of the planters. Thus she travelled from one gentleman’s house to another, affecting the manners of royalty, and admitting many of the gentry to the honour of kissing her royal hand. To some she promised governments, to others regiments, with promotions of all kinds in the Army, Navy, and Treasury. In short, she acted her part so plausibly that very few suspected her of being a deceiver. During the period of her imposture she levied heavy contributions upon some people of the highest rank in the southern colonies. At length the above advertisement appeared in the papers, and Mr Michael Dalton made his appearance in Charlestown, raising a loud hue and cry. Seeing that the game was up, her Serene Highness disappeared, and for a short time baffled the exertions of the police; but in the end she was captured and suffered condign punishment.

While on the subject of runaway slaves we will skip a few years, and so give a companion to this Cleopatra in the person of one Anthony, certainly a congenial spirit. The following is from a Raleigh paper of February 1815, in which it is preceded by the figure of a runaway negro. Anthony is evidently a paragon possessed of all a paragon’s failings, and Caleb Quotem, so renowned in farce, scarcely equalled the subject of this advertisement in the variety and whimsical nature of his accomplishments:--

TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS REWARD.

RAN away from Raleigh, a month or two ago, a mulatto man, named Anthony, well known in Raleigh, and many parts of the State, as having been, for several years, the body servant of General Jones, and mine lately as a pressman and news-carrier in the Star office. Anthony is about twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, five feet eight or ten inches high, is a mongrel white, has a tolerably large aquiline nose, bushy hair, a scar on one of his cheeks; when in good humour has a pleasing countenance.

He works and walks fast, is lively and talkative, full of anecdote, which he tells in character with much humour; is an excellent pressman, indifferent at distributing types, a tolerable carpenter and joiner, a plain painter, an excellent manager of horses, drives well and rides elegantly, having been accustomed to race riding; is fond of cock-fighting (and of man-fighting when drunk), and is said to heel and pit with skill; he can bleed and pull teeth, knows something of medicines, is a rough barber, a bad but conceited cook, a good sawyer, can lay bricks, has worked in the corn fields, and can scratch a little on the fiddle.

He can do many other things; and what he cannot do, he pretends to have a knowledge of. His trades and qualities are thus detailed, because his vanity will undoubtedly lead to a display of them. His master-vice, or rather, the parent of all his vices, is a fondness for strong drink, though sometimes he will abstain for months. His clothes cannot be described, but he carried away few or none, and ’tis expected will appear shabbily. He is an artful fellow, and if taken up will tell a most plausible story, and possibly show a forged pass.

In 1806 the Connecticut Courant contained the following, which gives an unpleasant idea of what many wives might say in reply to the warning advertisements of desperate husbands if they only thought it worth while, or rather if they thought of it at all:--

EAST WINDSOR, U.S.

THOMAS Hutchins has advertised, that I have absented myself from his bed and board, and forbid all persons trusting me on his account, and cautioned all persons against making me any payment on his account. I now advertise the public, that the same Thomas Hutchins came as a fortune-teller into this town about a year ago, with a recommendation, which, with some artful falsehoods, induced me to marry him. Of the four wives he had before me, the last he quarrelled away; how the other three came by their deaths, he can best inform the public: but I caution all widows or maidens against marrying him, be their desire for matrimony ever so strong. Should he make his advances under a feigned name, they may look out for a little, strutting, talkative, feeble, meagre, hatchet-faced fellow, with spindle shanks, and a little warped in the back.

THANKFUL HUTCHINS.

There are a good many more notices in the American papers which show that conjugal infelicity is no great rarity over there. The following exquisite effusion appeared in the Port Gibson Correspondent in November 1825:--

O matrimony! thou art like To Jeremiah’s figs-- The good are very good indeed, The bad--too sour for pigs!

WHEREAS, thank God! my wife Rachel has left my bed and board for the hereafter mentioned provocation: this is to give notice that I will pay no debts of her contracting after this date.--We were married young; the match was not of our own choosing, but a made-up one between our parents. “My dear,” says her mother, with a nose like a gourdhandle, to her best beloved, “now if we can get our neighbour Charles to consent to a marriage between our Rachel and his son, we shall have no more care upon our hands, and live the rest of our days in undisturbed repose.” Here my beloved began to whimper; the truth is, she loved tenderly, loved another--and they knew it; he had no property, however, and that was their only idea of happiness: but she could not conceive how they could feast in joy upon her misery. “Hold your tongue,” says her surly father, “don’t you think your parents know better how to direct your attachments than you do yourself?” “Yes, my dear,” says the mother, “you should always be governed by your parents--they are old and experienced and you are too young to think for yourself.” The old dad and mam forgot that they were a runaway love match at the age of nineteen. But poor Rachel said not a word for she was afraid of her daddy’s cowhide, that he had used sixteen years on nobody’s back but his daughter’s. She seemed reckless of her fate, was almost stupid, and did not know that she could alter it for the worse. My father, by persuasion and argument, dazzled my fancy with the eight negroes that would be her portion, “which,” said he, “put upon the quarter section which I shall give you, will render you independent, and you are a fool if you do not live happily with such an angel.”--“Angel!” said I, but I said no more, for my dad (in peace rest his ashes!) would have flown into a passion with the rapidity that powder catches fire; and its ebullition, like the blaze, would scorch me, I well knew.--We were married. I thought, as her father had ruled her with so tough a whip, I could do it with a hickory switch, and for my leniency gain her everlasting gratitude. We have now lived together six years, and have had no offspring except a hearty quarrel every little while. In truth I found her more spirited than I imagined; she was always ready to tally word for word, and blow for blow; but I never used a switch till the other day, always taking my open hand. The other day, coming home from work, very much fatigued and hungry, I found my wife in rather an unusual fit of passion, scolding some pigs that had overset the buttermilk. “Rachel,” says I, “make me some coffee.”--“Go to ----!” says she. I could not stand this; I had never heard her swear before. “I will chastise you for that,” says I. “Villain,” said she, “I’m determined to bear no more of your ill usage. Instead of using the mild and conciliating language which a husband ought to use, you always endeavour to beat me into measures--touch me with that whip, I will leave your house, and take my niggers with me too, so I will.” She had said such things so often that I did not regard her, and belaboured her handsomely. The next morning after I had gone out to work, away she bundles sure enough, and when I came home at noon, I found the house emptied of bag and baggage, and all the negroes taken but the three that were at work with me. I have lived happily since, however; and she may keep all she took, if she will stay at her crooked-nose mammy’s and never trouble my house again.

J. JOHNSTONE.

Laurence County, Miss. Nov. 1, 1825.

This is a vigorous specimen of condensation, and contains, according to the present standard, quite enough plot for a three-volume novel, with special opportunities for essays on the horrors of slavery. If any rising authoress--we will give way to a lady--should happen to stumble across this book, and see her opportunity, we will waive all rights, as, after trying to sketch out the story, it was abandoned in despair, owing to our inability to keep our wandering attention from the next advertisement, which gives a companion picture, though the complaint is this time laid by the woman:--

$100 REWARD--For the apprehension of Lewis Turtle, a tall man, about 50 years, has considerable money and a high forehead, long face and lantern jawed man, a bad man, with a fist like a giant, and has often beat me, and I want him to end his days in the Penitentiary where he belongs, and he wears a grey coat, with a very large mouth, and one blue eye, and one blind blue eye, and a hideous looking man, and now living with the 7th woman, and me having one child to him, and he has gone off, and I want him brought slap up in the law, with blue pants. He ought to be arrested and has a $100 of my money, and a bald headed rascal, full of flattery and receipt, and she is a bad woman, and her little girl calls him “papa” and is called Eliza Jane Tillis, and a boy blind of one eye, and he is not a man who has got any too much sense, nor her. And he stole $100 from me, and some of my gold and silver, and ought to be caught and I will never live with him again, no never, he is a disgrace. And I would like to have him caught up and compelled to maintain me and his child, as I am his lawful wedded wife, and have the certificate of marriage in my possession.

NANCY TURTLE.

Coherency was evidently not Nancy’s forte, and if she entertained her turtle-dove with much conversation as per sample, he was hardly to be blamed for trying a little change. In 1853 a sad and suffering husband sought consolation from the Muse, and published his lines in a Connecticut paper. Though not strictly in accordance with the rules laid down by authorities, they contain a good deal in a small space:--

Julia, my wife, has grown quite rude; She has left me in a lonesome mood; She has left my board, She has took my bed, She has gave away my meat and bread, She has left me in spite of friends and church, She has carried with her all my shirts. Now ye who read this paper, Since she cut this reckless caper, I will not pay one single fraction For any debt of her contraction.

LEVI ROCKWELL.

East Windsor, Conn. Aug. 4, 1853.

Another husband also flies to verse for consolation, and records both his experiences and his determination in the following notice:--

Whereas my pet, my pretty toy, My wife, my Lizzie J., Has left my bed and my employ, With other men to stray. I, therefore, take this to forewarn You not to trust her with a straw, For I will never pay her corn, Unless compelled by law.

HENRY KANUTE.

BIG SUAMICO, Oct. 13, 1870.

Still another husband, after publishing some supposed grievances in the public prints, is made to see the error of his ways, and eats the leek in the following manner, and in a New York paper. Verse is here the sign not of the disease but of the remedy:--

WHEREAS I, Daniel Clay, through misrepresentation, was induced to post my wife, Rhoda, in the papers; now I beg leave to inform the public, that I have again taken her to wife, after settling all our domestic broils in an amicable manner; so that everything, as usual, goes on like clockwork.

Divorc’d like scissars rent in twain, Each mourn’d the rivet out: Now whet and riveted again, They’ll make the old shears cut.

With a notification from a maligned as well as injured wife, this selection will probably be considered complete:--

NOTICE.

WHEREAS my husband Chas. F. Sandford, has thought proper to post me, and accuse me of having left his bed and board without cause, etc., I wish to make it known that the said Charlie never had a bed, the bed and furniture belonging to me, given to me by my father; the room and board he pretended to furnish me were in Providence, where he left me alone, while he staid at the Valley with his “Ma.” He offered me $200 to leave him and go home, telling at the same time that I could not stay at the place he had provided for me, and as I have never seen the named sum, I suppose he will let me have it if I can earn the amount. It was useless for Charlie to warn the public against trusting me on his account, as my father has paid my bills since my marriage, as before.

Moral.--Girls, never marry a man not weaned from his “Ma,” and don’t marry the whole family.

ELEANOR J. SANDFORD.

North Providence, July 1, 1871.

From such advertisements as the foregoing to those which emanate from persons desirous of becoming married is but a step; though, as has been already shown, most of the applications which come under the head of Matrimonial in the New York papers hardly justify the selection. Here is one, of a fair and honourable type enough, but it is fifty years old, being from the New York Morning Herald of July 2, 1824. This probably accounts for its really meaning marriage, and nothing else:--

WANTED immediately a young LADY of the following description (as a wife) with about 2000 dollars as a patrimony: Sweet temper, spend little, be a good housewife and born in America; and as I am not more than 25 years of age I hope it will not be difficult to find a good wife.

N.B.--I take my dwelling in South Second Street, No. 273. Any lady that answers the above description will please to leave her card.

This swain in his anxiety has forgotten to give either name or initials, so we cannot take steps to see whether or not he succeeded in getting a “rale Yankee gal.” The advertisements of the present day are mainly of the character already quoted from the Sunday Mercury, in proof whereof we take one cut at random from a paper published three thousand miles away from that estimable journal, viz., the San Francisco Chronicle:--

TWO FUN-LOVING YOUNG LADIES would like to correspond with an unlimited number of young gentlemen; object, fun. Address, Roxey Hastings and Gracie Baker, Virginia, Nevada.

jy17 2t*

This is barefaced enough, in all conscience; but it is by no means out of the way, and will stand as a fair example of the rest.

From the Waverley Magazine, Boston--which is not a magazine as we understand the term, but a large broadsheet periodical--of four years back, we extract a batch of communications, which for convenience might be called matrimonial, but which have little to do with marriage:--

CORRESPONDENCE.

Two Dollars Each Address For One Insertion.

* * * * *

A YOUNG MAN of good standing in society, of refinement and education, desires an unlimited number of young-lady correspondents. Respectability and education the only requisites. Object, agreeable amusement during these long winter evenings. All letters answered. Photographs exchanged if desired. Address GEORGE MEADE, box 125, Middleburg, Schoharie County, N.Y.

* * * * *

TWO young gentlemen would like to correspond with a number of young ladies, for improvement and amusement. Both are good-looking and in good circumstances. None but members of the National Matrimonial Association need reply. Address CASKER PLATT, box 2442, New-York City.

* * * * *

LADIES and gentlemen who wish correspondents will please send their photograph and ten cents for particulars and photograph of correspondent. Address “CENTRAL PERSONAL AGENCY,” Garrettsville, O.

* * * * *

A YOUNG gentleman of good character and habits desires to correspond with some young lady, for amusement, mutual benefit, and perhaps matrimony. Address FRED S. LORING, box 1356, St. Paul, Minn.

* * * * *

A YOUNG gentleman wishes a lady correspondent. Object, cultivation of the heart and mind. Address, ARTHUR C. STANLEY, box 27, Letter Depot No. 54, East Twelfth Street, New-York City.

* * * * *

WILL “Mac,” of Cambridge, who has a lady’s privilege of changing her mind, please send her full address to J. S. W., now of Portland, Me.?

J. S. W.

* * * * *

ATTENTION.--Ladies, when you have nothing else to do write to me. Address EDWARD BELL, box 27, Sheffield, Mass.

The same paper also contains the following. As it is published early in the year, February 5, 1870, there must have been a rare rush of the amorous to enlist themselves under its banners:--

NATIONAL MATRIMONIAL ASSOCIATION.

HAVE you joined the National Matrimonial Association? Every young lady and gentleman will learn of many privileges and advantages to be gained by joining the association. 13,400 members since Nov. 9. Monthly meeting of members in different sections of the Union alternating for convenience. Members, though strangers, can recognize each other by means of the grip and secret signs of the association. The circular of the association, giving all particulars, will be sent postpaid upon receipt of ten cents. A young lady and gentleman are wanted as agents in towns where none have been appointed. Members wishing any information at any time need not inclose stamp. Address “Box 686,” Hartford, Conn.

Nos. 6, 8.

Falling back from matrimony and its substitutes into the regular channel, we take a declaration which contains a theory doubtless often promulgated nowadays at Bethlehem Hospital, Colney Hatch, and maybe Earlswood. Perhaps, though, it will be considered worthy the attention of philosophers, seeing that just now any new or startling view is sure to command not only regard but remuneration:--

Light developes light--ad infinitum.

St. Louis (Missouri Territory) North America.

April 10, A.D. 1818.

TO ALL THE WORLD.--I declare the earth to be hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of concentric spheres, one within the other, and that their poles are open twelve or sixteen degrees. I pledge my life in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the concave, if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking.

JOHN CLEVES SYMMES of Ohio, late Captain of Infantry.

I ask one hundred brave companions, well equipped, to start for Siberia, in autumn, with reindeer and sledges, on the ice of the frozen sea. I engage we find a warm country and rich land, stocked with thrifty vegetables and animals, if not men, on reaching about sixty-nine miles northward of latitude 82°. We will return in the succeeding spring.--J. C. S.

Captain Symmes seems pretty positive about getting back, though how he intended to get up again after getting down into one of the lower spheres he doesn’t say. Perhaps a hundred brave companions, standing on each other’s heads, might manage it, and if that was the idea, one of our own learned societies might look into it. Good thick heads would of course be necessary to bear the strain, and that may be, after all, the reason why they are so plentiful. Quien sabe? Far more within the ken of ordinary mortals is the following, which comes from Connecticut, and is well worthy of even that land of “notions:”--

THE SUBSCRIBER

BEING determined not to move from this State, requests all persons indebted to pay particular attention to his

New definition of an Old Grammar, viz.

Present Tense.

I am. Thou art. He is.

I am[48] } In want of money. Thou art[49] } Indebted to me. He is[50] } Shortly to be authorized, for the want thereof to take } the body.

Unless immediate payment is made, you must expect to take a lecture upon my new plural.

The Subscriber offers for sale, at his Store, two rods south of the Fish-market, the following articles, viz.

Solid Arguments.

Hot Oysters, Boiled Lobsters, Ham and Eggs, Butter and Cheese, &c.

Agitations.

Cider, Vinegar, Salt, Pickles, etc.

Grievances.

Pepper-Sauce, Mustard, Cayenne-Pepper.

Punishments.

Rum, Brandy, Gin, Bitters, etc.

Superfluities.

Snuff, Tobacco, Segars, Pomatum, etc.

Extraordinaries.

Sea Serpent’s Bones, Wooden Shoes, Waterwitches, etc.

N.B. The above articles will be exchanged for

Necessaries, viz.

Bank-Bills at par, Crowns, Dollars, Half ditto, Quarter ditto, Pistareens, Nine penny pieces, Four-penny half-penny ditto, or Cents.

Terms of Payment:

One half the sum down, and the other half on the delivery of the articles.

Rudiments gratis, viz.

Those indebted for Arguments Must not be Agitated; Nor think it a Grievance If they should meet Punishment For calling such Superfluities; Nor think it Extraordinary That I find it Necessary To demand immediate Payment.

ANDREW SMITH.

The smallest favour thankfully received.

New London, March 1, 1819.

It seems a pity that such genius as that of “the subscriber” should have been wasted upon trifles; but possibly in such a country as the United States, where nothing is beyond a man’s reach if his head is only long enough, he reaped the honours and rewards to which his talents entitled him. So many famous people have been called Smith, in America as well as here, that it would be vain to attempt a discovery of his subsequent career. Maybe he went to New York, and composed the following advertisement, which is just of three years’ later date, and seems strange to those who know the Empire City in its present condition only:--

ANY person in want of a DEAD PIG may find one, that will probably answer his purpose, in the middle of Broadway, between Broome and Spring Streets. Applicants need not be in any great haste, as it is expected that he will lie there several days; and if the warm weather should last, and the carriages will let him alone, he will grow--bigger and bigger.

Getting nearer to modern times--1822 is very old for American notions--we find a New Yorker who speaks his mind freely, and treats his customers with moral illustration as well as business detail:--

GEORGE OTT, 262, North Second Street, respectfully informs his customers and friends in general, that his bakehouse is in full operation, and that he is always prepared to supply them with loaf-bread, crackers, pilot-bread, fresh rusks, &c. &c.

Having disposed of his list of wares, our baker proceeds, and no one can accuse him of mincing the matter:--

On his part nothing shall be left undone to give complete satisfaction to his customers, and in return he expects them to pay punctually when their bills are presented. Experience having taught him, that a disorderly soldier in the ranks and a bad paymaster in a baker’s list of customers, are the most troublesome customers a man can have anything to do with, he requests those who do not calculate on paying promptly, to oblige him so far as to give their custom to a more accommodating baker.

Being anxious to take a journey for the benefit of his health, which is much impaired, those indebted to him would oblige him very much by making immediate payment; and he requests those who may have claims against him to call and receive their money.

Payment of quite a different kind is treated of in the next advertisement, which few boys, old or young, will read without feeling interested. It is, though in such few words, a marvellous exhibition of the suaviter in modo and the fortiter in re well mixed; and one can well understand the writer to be an agreeable friend and jolly companion, but a strict disciplinarian:--

Flushing Institute.

DEAR BOYS--Trouble begins Septr. 15.

E. A. FAIRCHILD.

It was said of one of our public schoolmasters that it was a pleasure to be flogged by him. We will take advantage of the present opportunity to remind those who have accepted it as a proverb, and believed it firmly, that the originator of the remark, like the originators of many other observations, never practically put his ideas to the test. Possibly on the same principle it would be a pleasure to have one’s property sold off by auction, provided the advertisement were drawn out like that of the Yankee auctioneer from which we select this portion:--

I can sell for eighteen hundred and thirty nine dollars, a palace, a sweet and pensive retirement, on the virgin banks of the Hudson, containing 85 acres. The land is luxuriously divided by the hand of nature and art, into pasture and tillage, into plain and declivity, into the stern abruptness and the dalliance of most tufted meadow. Streams of sparkling gladness (thick with trout) dance through this wilderness of beauty, to the music of the cricket and grasshopper. The evergreen sighs as the evening zephyr flits through its shadowy bosom, and the aspen trembles like the love-splitting heart of a damsel. Fruits of the tropics in golden beauty melt on the bows, and the bees go heavy and sweet from the fields to their garnering hives. The stables are worthy of the steeds of Nimrod or the studs of Achilles, and its henery was built expressly for the birds of paradise; while sombre in the distance, like the cave of a hermit, glimpses are caught of the dog house. Here poets have come and warbled their lays, here sculptors have cut, here painters have robbed the scene of dreamy landscapes, and here the philosopher discovered the stone which made him the alchymist of nature. As the young moon hangs like a cutting of silver from the blue breast of the sky, an angel may be seen each night dancing with golden tiptoes on the greensward. (N.B. This angel goes with the place.)

Even our great Robins in his best form never exceeded this in picturesqueness of description. But our man could stay, and this one had shot his bolt when he got to the finish of the foregoing paragraph. At the commencement of the war against the “Seceshers,” a good many of the Northern tradesmen made capital out of it, the following, in a Tribune of February 1861, forming a case in point:--

IMPORTANT FROM CHARLESTOWN!

MAJOR ANDERSON TAKEN!

ENTRANCE OBTAINED UNDER A FLAG OF TRUCE!

NEW YORKERS IMPLICATED!

GREAT EXCITEMENT! WHAT WILL THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY DO NEXT?

ON the 8th instant, about twelve hours before midnight, under cover of a bright sun, Col. George S. Cooke, of the Charlestown Photographic Light Artillery, with a strong force, made his way to Fort Sumter. On being discovered by the vigilant sentry, he ran up a flag of truce. The gate of the fortress being open, Col. Cooke immediately and heroically penetrated to the presence of Major Anderson, and levelling a double barrelled camera, demanded his unconditional surrender in the name of E. Anthony and the Photographic Community. Seeing that resistance would be in vain, the Major at once surrendered, and was borne in triumph to Charlestown, forwarded to New York, and is now on sale in the shape of Exquisite Card Photographs at 28 cents per copy, by E. Anthony, &c. &c.

“Old McCalla” is or was a character well known in Princetown, Indiana. A few years back, when the following was published, he was nearly ninety years of age, but was still capable of minding his own business:--

WANTED.--Two or three boarders of a decent stripe, such as go to bed at nine o’clock without a pipe or cigar in their mouth. I wish them to rise in time to wash their faces and comb their heads before breakfast. When they put on their boots to draw down their pants over them, and not have them rumpled about their knees, which is a sure sign of a rowdy. When they sit down to rest or warm by the fire, not to put their feet on the mantlepiece or bureau, nor spit in the bread tray. And to pay their board weekly, monthly, or quarterly--as may be agreed upon--with a smile upon their faces, and they will find me as pleasant as an opposum up a persimmon tree.

OLD MCCALLA.

Another boarding-house advertisement, which comes from Portland, Oregon, is also characteristic. A correspondent informs us that the Mr Thompson mentioned in it is a hard-working blacksmith, and he and his wife run the concern on the temperance plan:--

THOMPSON’S TWO-BIT HOUSE, Front St., bet. Main and Madison.

NO DECEPTION THERE!

HI-YOU MUCK-A-MUCK, AND HERE’S YOUR BILL OF FARE:

THREE KINDS OF MEAT FOR DINNER; ALSO FOR Breakfast and Supper. Ham and Eggs every other day, and Fresh Fish, Hot Rolls, and Cake in abundance.

Hurry up; and none of your sneering at CHEAP BOARDING-HOUSES. Now’s the time to have the wrinkles taken out of your bellies after the hard winter.

Board and Lodging $5 00 Board $4 00

Six NEW rooms, furnished with beds--the BEST in town--at my Branch House, corner First and Jefferson.

I am ready for the BONE and SINEW of the country.

“Hi-you Muck a-muck,” we are also told, is a phrase in the Chinook language for plenty to eat. What the Chinook language is we must leave our readers to discover for themselves. Is it “heathen Chinee” as distinguished from the pure and unadulterated article? We pause for the reply of an expert, and while pausing, think that the following may be contemplated with some degree of interest, for families over here are drifting to the same state of difficulty very fast. A good servant is a jewel to be worn in one’s bosom even in London, and so it is nothing wonderful that in Syracuse, U.S., five years back, this should have appeared:--

WANTED--A Good SERVANT GIRL to whom the highest wages will be paid. Having had great difficulty in procuring good help, on account of the misfortune of having seven small children, we will poison, drown, or otherwise make away with four of them on application of a first class servant girl. Apply at the office of this paper.

What a glorious subject this would have been for Leech or Doyle in the palmy days of Punch, when wit and humour, and not high art and sober earnest, were considered essentials for the illustration of a comic paper, and when jokes were not regarded as ill-timed on the part of a contributor! Historic painters are now the only humourists, and we do hope one, either English or American, may see this, and avail himself of it. The next is from an Iowa periodical, and will show our impartiality to all states in the Union, no one having received an undue share of attention--that is, beyond its merits. It will, besides, bring us up to comparatively recent dates:--

CAUTION.

WHEREAS, one U. T. S. RICE, a small, insignificant-looking whelp, who wears spectacles, carries a large cane, has a limp in his walk, talks smooth, and lies like Satan, has been obtaining money and credit by representing himself as a partner in the firm of Smart and Parrott, or as agent for us: we hereby caution all persons that we are not responsible for any of his acts. He is in no way connected with us, but is a perfect dead beat in every sense of the word.

“Dead beat” is a comprehensive and transatlantic euphemism for the more expressive thief, scoundrel, swindler, or sharper, any one of which, or all four combined, if he so pleases, the “dead beat” may be; and the subject of the Iowa notice seems a full-fledged and duly-qualified representative of the class.

It is hardly necessary to state that in America quacks and quack medicines abound. The papers are full of the advertisements of these men and their nostrums, and it would be quite easy to fill a very large volume with specimens. So much attention has already been given to the charlatans of Europe that we must perforce content ourselves with a very few specimens from the répertoires of their American brethren; but the chief difficulty is not what to select but what to omit. One of the evils which medical impostors in the States pretend to cure is that of drunkenness, and a notice in Harper’s Weekly, which seems to be the chief organ of this kind of advertisers, runs as follows:--

DRUNKARDS, Stop! G. C. Beers, M.D., 670, Washington Street, Boston, Mass., has a medicine that will cure intemperance. Recommended by Judge Russell. Can be given secretly. Send stamp for circular.

Another vendor of specifics gives in the New York Sun this astonishing statement and purely unselfish promise:--

TRIED friends the best of friends. Since the suspension of H. C. Thorpe’s advertisements, the number of deaths by consumption is truly astonishing; advertisements will now appear for the benefit of the afflicted.

But this is nothing compared with the marvellous Riga Balsam, about the incomparable virtues of which we have a long advertisement, which, after all sorts of extraordinary statements, ends thus:--

N.B. The trial of the Riga Balsam is this: Take a hew or a ram, drive a nail through its skull, brains and tongue, then pour some of it into the wound, it will directly stop the blood and cure the wound in eight or nine minutes, and the creature will eat as before.

A stoop costs two dollars, and it is sold in smaller portions; at the sale every person gets a direction which describes its surprising virtues and how it is to be used. The glasses, jars and bottles, are sealed up with this seal (A. K. Balsam) to prevent counterfeits.

Ecclesiasticus, chap. xxxiii. ver. 4. The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them.

Which forcibly reminds us of an equally wonderful specific which was known in Holland about a century ago, if we may believe the Dutch Mercurius for January 1772, which states that “on December the 30th, 1771, Mr Tunnestrik experimented in the presence of the Prince Stadholder and sundry professors, by driving an iron spike into a horse’s head, and afterwards pulling it out with a pair of pincers. Hereupon he poured certain oils by him invented into the wound, by means of which the horse within six minutes was whole again, and not even a scar remained to be seen.” This horse, like the celebrated leg which was cured of its fracture with tar-water and oakum, must have been made of wood. With regard to the Riga Balsam, we might swallow that statement with the assistance, say, of another wonderful American potion, the Plantation Bitters, which, if we are to judge by the following, could help anything down:--

S. T.--1860.--X.

TO be, or not to be, that is the question. Whether to suffer with mental anguish, Feverish lips, cracking pains, dyspeptic agonies, And nameless bodily suffering; Or whether, with sudden dash, Seize a bottle of PLANTATION BITTERS, And, as Gunther swears, be myself a man again. Gunther said my eyes were sallow, My visage haggard, my breath tremendous bad, My disposition troublesome--in fact, He gently hinted I was fast becoming Quite a nuisance. Four bottles now beneath my vest have disappeared: My food has relish, my appetite is keen, My step elastic, my mind brilliant, and Nine pounds avoirdupois is added to my weight.

The formula “S. T.--1860.--X.” appears at the top of every advertisement of the bitters, and the first two portions doubtless refer to the name of the inventor and the date of the invention, while x may be the unknown quantity which has to be taken before the promises held forth in the advertisement are fulfilled. A good instance of the difference between precept and practice is shown by the annexed, which comes well from a firm in no way disdainful of the uses of advertising:--

S. T.--1860.--X.

SOME of our contemporaries seem to think that the triumph of their cause depended, like the fate of Jericho, upon the amount of noise made. In these days of refinement and luxury, an article of real intrinsic merit is soon appreciated, hence the unbounded and unparalleled success of

PLANTATION BITTERS.

Like the two preceding, this is from Harper’s Weekly, the price for advertisements in the inner pages of which is said to be 1 dollar 50 cents per line, about five times as much as any of our highest priced papers, for the lines are by no means long for the money. The best customer Harper’s has, and at the price perhaps the best customer any paper ever had, is Professor Leonidas Hamilton, who puffs himself in the most extraordinary manner, being always well before his beloved public, and now and again having seven columns of closely printed matter in Harper’s, at the exorbitant price just mentioned. This lengthy advertisement is called “A Timely Warning, and the Reason Why,” and is constructed upon truly Yankee principles. It commences:--

HOW sublime, how beautiful the thought that the researches and developments of the Nineteenth Century have added fresh and glorious laurels to the great temple of fame and science! In every department and phase of progressive development the hand of the sage and philosopher is ever busy--ever ready to devise means for the amelioration of human woe and the prolongation of life.

Think you his an enviable position--an existence without stern obstacles and perplexing cares? Nay, far from it; for he plucks the lovely rose in peril of the thorn; he climbs to eminence and renown, and every step he gains is planted on a prostrate foe. He digs the gold and tries it; another and a bolder hand must strike the blow that stamps its worth and gives it currency as genuine.

It must be admitted by every rational mind that the man who contributes the most toward promoting the happiness and welfare of the human race, must of necessity be the most highly esteemed by his fellow-men; acting upon this principle, Prof. R. L. HAMILTON, of New York, has, by patient investigation, and vast experience, solved the uncertain question in relation to the vexed and important subject of Liver Complaints and other chronic diseases.

After a long preamble of this kind the Professor describes the “Symptoms of Liver Complaints,” from which by an easy transition he comes to some “Important Facts,” informing his “dear reader” that he “has remedies that will strike at the root of them as by magic,” for “there is no such word as fail in his treatment.” After that, a couple of columns are devoted to enumerate the “Reasons why Dr Hamilton is successful.” One of these is--“Because he has investigated every remedy known to science, and, in addition, has new remedies, of the fields and forests OF HIS OWN DISCOVERY, and of the greatest possible efficacy and value.” He ends this part with the awful words, “The truth must be told if the heavens fall,” and a lot of testimonials are produced, each with a sensation heading, and relating the most wonderful effects produced by the Doctor’s medicines. Thus one has got “an old lung difficulty;” another has “gained twenty pounds in three months,”--not money unfortunately, but flesh. One of the most curious puffs arising out of these testimonials is the following:--

IS ALL THIS TRUE?

Mr. Samuel L. Furlong, of Muskegan, Mich., in a letter dated April 6, 1868, writes:

“I have cut out SEVENTEEN of the testimonials that were in the New York Tribune, and sent them to the persons themselves, with letters of inquiry about them, and also about you, and every one stated that they were true, and recommending your remedies very highly; also giving a history of their cases, which was, indeed, very cheering to a poor man, with a sick wife and six small children to support.”

The inconsequence of the conclusion is quite refreshing. What benefit this distressed family could have derived from the perusal of the testimonials we will not presume to say. Thus by an easy climax of sensational headings and cures, we arrive at three final articles, respectively headed, “In his mercy he saves the afflicted!”--“Read, ye afflicted”--and “Appreciate it fully.” Then follows the “Conclusion” that it would be useless to cry “humbug,” for the above parties have volunteered to give their evidence for the benefit of the suffering and for no other purpose, and the whole ends with a friendly recommendation to “have no hesitancy in writing to the Doctor, and state to him your case in full, and he will deal honestly and promptly with you.”

Another very extensive dealer in advertisements, who also uses Harper’s columns considerably, is the proprietor of the Pain Paint. His works are humorous and entertaining, the following being a fair example:--

MY WIFE HAD AN ULCER On her Leg Thirteen years, Caused by various veins Extending from her ancle to her knee. Some places eaten away To the bone. I have employed Over twenty eminent physicians At vast expense, But all attempts at cure Proved utterly abortive Until I used Wolcott’s Pain Paint, Which the Doctors told me Was humbug. But humbug or not It has done the work complete In less than one month, Removing the pain At first application. I kept her leg wet With PAIN PAINT constantly Till healed. I wish we had more humbugs as useful As Dr. Wolcott’s PAIN PAINT. I am well known in this city, And any person Can make further inquiry At 101 West Street, New York, At the Hanover House Of which I am proprietor. And I think I can satisfy All as to the benefit Derived by the use of PAIN PAINT.

May 12, 1868.

PETER MINCK.

There are many advertisements from Hamilton, Wolcott, and various other “professors” still before us, but with the foregoing we will conclude, and leave the curious to search the American journals for themselves. Those who like to take the trouble will find in them an inexhaustible mine of wealth. The reflection naturally arises in the minds of readers, that the Americans cannot, after all, be such a wonderfully smart nation, to allow an almost countless horde of quacks and impostors to batten on them, and to make large fortunes even in the face of the tremendous sums they have to pay for advertisements.

* * * * *

Extensive as our Colonies are, and numerous and excellent as are the newspapers published in them, the advertisements of the present day may be said with justice to offer no distinctive features whatever. With the exception of the names of streets and towns, the trade and other notices are just the same as appear in the home journals; and even the cries which now and again go up from the Australian papers for missing relatives are paralleled by similar advertisements constantly appearing in our own metropolis. We have, though, two or three quaint old specimens which have been lighted upon at rare intervals, and more because it would be unfair to pass over our extensive dependencies without mention than for any other reason we offer them to the consideration of the reader. The first is nearly eighty years old, and is copied verbatim from a Jamaica paper of the period:--

Kingston, March 7, 1795.

HALF-A-JOE REWARD.

WALKED away, about a Month ago, a Negro Wench, named Prudence; she is of the Eboe Country, a yellow Complexion, round chubby Face, goggle or full Eyes, has lost several of her fore Teeth, is short, lively, and active, a great Thief, speaks quick and tolerable good English; is one of the black Parson Lisle’s Congregation; she is marked on both Shoulders and the left Cheek R. L.; had a Collar about her Neck, Chain and Lock, as a Punishment for her trying to entice a Man away the second Time; she is capable of very great Deception; she lards almost every Word with “plase God,” or some pious Expression, and will thieve at the same Time.

It is likely she will endeavour to pass as free; she formerly belonged to Mary Roberts, and lately to Sarah Osborn; she has been twenty Years in the Town of Kingston, and about fourteen Months in the Country. When she left Kingston she secreted a Quantity of her Clothes with some of her Tribe; if gone there, she will be able to change her Dress. Is well acquainted in Spanish-town, and many other Parts of the Island; she possesses a great Share of the “holy Goggle,” that is, throwing up her Eyes, and calling upon everything that is sacred, even when stolen Goods have been found upon her. She lately ran away, and was taken up. Whoever apprehends her a second Time, and lodges her in any Workhouse or Gaol in this Island, shall be entitled to the above Reward, and all reasonable Charges, on Application to Linwood and Nicoll, Merchants, in Kingston; or the Subscriber, at Wakefield, in Cedar Valley, St. George’s.

ROBERT LOOSELY.

N.B. All Masters of Vessels are hereby cautioned against carrying her off; and all Persons found harbouring her, will be prosecuted with the utmost Rigour of the Law.

The next is of a considerably later time, being under date 1818, and comes from a different quarter of the globe. It refers to a raffle for women, and was published in a daily paper of Calcutta:--

FEMALES RAFFLED FOR.--Be it known, that Six Fair Pretty Young LADIES, with two sweet and engaging CHILDREN, lately imported from Europe, having roses of health blooming on their cheeks, and joy sparkling in their eyes, possessing amiable tempers and highly accomplished, whom the most indifferent cannot behold without expressions of rapture, are to be raffled for, next door to the British Gallery. Scheme: Twelve Tickets, at 12 rupees each; the highest of the three throws, doubtless, takes the most fascinating, &c. &c.

Modern improvements have, after all, somewhat benefited the world. Who would dream nowadays of such a scheme having been publicly advertised in a British dominion less than sixty years since? And this was not by any means the latest of such speculations either, yet it will be news to many that, even at the date given, such transactions were openly conducted. The next, also from Calcutta, is half-a-dozen years later, and treats of quite another vanity of the owners of the soil:--

NOTICE.--Mr W. M‘Cleish begs to state to his friends and the public that he has received by the most recent arrivals the Prettiest Waistcoat Pieces that were ever seen: really it would be worth any gentleman’s while even to look at them. It surpasses his weak understanding, how man who is born of a woman and full of trouble, could invent such pretty things.

It strikes him forcibly that the patterns and texture must have been undoubtedly invented by some wise philosopher.

Ladies, although my shop’s small, I pray you won’t fear, I turned out my pelisses, the first of the land sure may wear; If they are not well finished, or the best of trimmings-- I will undertake to eat backs, breasts, sleeves, and linings.

No. 39, Cossitollah, Jan. 4, 1824.

Australia offers us, by means of the Sydney Gazette of August 1825, an advertisement worth perusal:--

MRS BROWN respectfully thanks the community of thieves for relieving her from the fatigues and wearisomeness of keeping a chandler’s shop, by taking the following goods off her hands; viz.--35 yards of shirting, 12 do. of muslin, 40 do. of calico, and various articles, as the auctioneer terms it, “too many to mention in an advertisement.” But the gentlemen in their despatch of business forgot that they had taken along with them an infant’s paraphernalia, two dozen of clouts, so elegantly termed by washerwomen. If the professors of felony do not give a dinner to their pals, and convert them into d’oyleys for finger glasses, Mrs Brown will thank them to return them, as they would not be so unmagnanimous and deficient of honour to keep such bagatelles from a poor mother and four children. This is to apprize the receivers of stolen property, that she will sooner or later have the pleasure of seeing their necks stretched, and that they will receive a tight cravat under the gallows by their beloved friend Jack Ketch. As the old saying is “The better the day the better the deed,” the fraternity performed their operations on Sunday night last.

17, Philip Street.

Another from the same source, though of somewhat later date, refers to a failing not at all peculiar to the ladies and gentlemen of Sydney, as most owners and collectors of books have doubtless discovered ere now to their cost:--

IT is requested that those Ladies and Gentlemen who have, from time to time, borrowed books from Mr. S. Levy, will return them to the undersigned, who respectfully solicits all books now in possession of persons to whom they do not belong, to comply with the above--a fresh supply may be had. Among the number missing are the Pastor’s Fire Side, Tales of my Landlord, Kenilworth, Princess Charlotte, Secret Revenge, Smollett’s Works, Ivanhoe, Tales of the Times, Paradise Lost--so are the books until found by

B. LEVY.

No. 72, George Street, Sydney.

The solicitation to the books themselves “to comply with the above,” is no doubt an Australian figure by which, in order to avoid an obnoxious accusation against the borrowers, the books are supposed to be unwilling to return to the rightful owners. Between forty and fifty years ago it would have been very unpleasant in Australia to imply that any one had a desire to take that which belonged to any one else with a view to its permanent detention.

As we have said, the advertisements of more modern times call for no particular mention, and the papers published in New South Wales and Victoria--excellent journals, some of them capitally illustrated, and all equal to anything at home--contain nothing in their columns of a kind different from what has been already given under some one or other of the various chapter heads of this volume. In Canada the contiguity of the States is now and again apparent in the advertisements; but after the full-flavoured samples of the latter, anything from the Dominion would seem poor indeed.

[47] It is only fair to Americans in general, to state that the proprietor of this the most American of all American papers is an Englishman. At least, we are informed so by men who remember him in London.

[48] Andrew Smith.

[49] Any one the coat fits.

[50] Hezekiah Goddard, Sheriff’s Deputy.

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