AN ADVERTISER'S APPEAL.
["Mr. Caine (who advocates prohibiting open-air advertisements in rural places) forgets that a good many people are unable to see that an advertisement of soap and pills mars the beauty of a landscape."—Illustrated News.]
Oh, Mister Caine—not Sugar-Caine, but bitter
'Gainst alcohol and opium and field-signs—
Why put poor Advertisers in a twitter
By laying thus hard legislative lines
In the defence of merely pastoral Beauty,
By levying on Field-Signs a fine or duty?
Good gracious! what are meadows, rocks and trees
Compared with the necessity—absolute, Sir!—
Of advertising Silks and Soaps and Teas,
Popkins's Pickles, Boodle's Bottled Fruit, Sir?
Or how should he King Mammon's heavy hand 'scape
Who'd sacrifice great £ s. d. to—Landscape?
A Nuisance? Nonsense!!! Posters and Placards,
In field or forest, serve the Public better
Than all the blatant bosh of bleating bards.
The Advertising Art would you thus fetter?
What is the worth of rivers, rooks, and hills
Compared with Smugson's Soaps and Podger's Pills?
Soap, Sir, means Cleanliness, and Pills mean Health;
And Sanitation's surely more than Scenery!
Subordinate the claims of Health—and Wealth—
To sentimental love of rural greenery?
No, Mister Caine. I wonder you're not wiser,
Pan is at present the great Advertiser!
