“The man, who not a farthing owes,
Looks down with scornful eye on those
Who rise by fraud and cunning,
Tho’ in the Pig-market he stand
With aspect grave and clear-starched band,
He fear’s no tradesmen’s dunning.
“He passes by each shop in town,
Nor hides his face beneath his gown,
No dread his heart invading;
He quaffs the nectar of the Tuns
Or on a spur-gall’d hackney runs
To London, masquerading.
“Place me on Scotland’s bleakest hill,
Provided I can pay my bill,
Hang every thought of sorrow,
There falling sleet, or frost, or rain
Attack a soul resolv’d in vain;
It may be fair to-morrow.”
From the fact that the man in debt had to hide his head beneath his gown in order to get past the shops safely or else to pursue the longer but less risky method of slinking down back streets so as to avoid meeting creditors, it is certain that the shopkeeper who had lost his patience, and was intent on nothing but getting his money back, was looked upon as a fearsome and dreaded creature. His war tactics, aided by free access to his customer’s rooms, consisted of serving writs freely—putting the dun upon his victims. One way to evade the serving was to sport the oak and remain in voluntary confinement. Such a method was not, however, popular as there was no alternative but work to relieve the tedium of such imprisonment. Another way was described in the diary of a modern Oxford man in The Loiterer. This “modern” gentleman was slacking away the boring hour after breakfast in the perusal of “Bartlett’s Farriery” when there came a tap at his door, and in strode a dun with an insolent smirk. The Undergraduate politely explained that he was shortly expecting a very healthy windfall from home, upon receipt of which he would immediately pay what was owing. The dun received this news with cold disbelief and refused to be put off. Upon being offered brandy he became “sulky,” and refused with a touch of irritation. Then the Undergraduate, enraged at such insolence, rose in his wrath and kicked the fellow down stairs to stop him from becoming more impertinent.
The dun must have possessed a curious character. Knowing well the propensities of Undergraduates, he did not, like a wise man, imbibe the liquid refreshment so generously offered to him, and depart with the knowledge that payment, for that day at least, was impossible. Instead, he refused brandy and waited to be kicked out—without, apparently, having served his writ.
The question of advertising was in those days only in its infancy. The tradesman patronised Jackson’s Oxford Journal to a certain extent. In it are to be found curiously worded announcements of medicines, books, cock-fights, curacies to be drunk or eaten for, dancing masters who were exclusive to the peerage, election paragraphs, and public notices; while advertisements for wives and husbands, or loans of money, were not infrequent. One of the most up-to-date and cunning methods then practised was for two rival tradesmen to get up a mock ink-slinging match in the columns of some periodical, and week after week furiously to denounce each other as cheats, tricksters, and knaves, the one saying that the other sold inferior goods, and vice versâ.
The Loiterer, prowling round incognito in search of copy for his next issue, witnessed a “circumstance” as he calls it, connected with advertisements, which is not unamusing. He was seated in his favourite elbow chair in his usual corner at King’s coffee-room, and had almost despaired of picking up an idea, when he noticed a very reverend and respectable gentleman who was apparently quite unknown to every one in the room, and who seemed more engrossed in his own thoughts than amused by the newspaper he was reading or the laughter and talk from the others in the coffee-room. Suddenly, calling for his bill, he finished reading a paragraph in the paper with upraised eyebrows and a note of horrified surprise in his voice. “Upwards of forty thousand persons of both sexes! Good God,” he said, “what a state must the cities of London and Westminster be in!” The elderly gentleman rose, and on his way out placed the paper into The Loiterer’s hand. Every one in the room had heard his remark and observed the manner of his exit. Immediately, therefore, there was great excitement, every one wondering what amazing thing had happened that could have escaped his notice while reading that very paper. The Loiterer began calmly to read solidly through column after column to find this wonderfully exciting paragraph. While he was doing so a thin, emaciated man “with a sallow and diseased countenance who, I have now reason to believe was one of the forty thousand, stepped forward and elucidated the mystery in a moment.”
He rapped out an oath and swore that the old gentleman had been meditating on the advertisement of Leake’s Justly Famous Pill.
From this perturbing episode in the coffee-house The Loiterer got the idea of using his paper for the discussion of the peculiarities of advertisement indulged in by tradesmen, local and otherwise. “I shall pass over,” he says, “the various wants of mankind, together with the pompous Descriptions, the florid and luxuriant Language of Auctioneers which is capable of converting a paltry Cottage into an elegant Villa. Nor shall I dwell on a curious Phenomenon, a political Advertisement for the Sale of Perfumery and the Dressing of Hair. But it is impossible with the same indifference to pass over the ingenious Mr —— who sells his Wines ‘for the πόδας ὠκύς of ready Money only, Wines in which neither the eyes of Argus, nor the Taste of Epicurus, can discover the least sophistication.’
“One advertisement informs us, that Chimney pieces, another that Candlesticks, are ‘fashioned according to architectonic Models, and agreeable to the affecting chastity of the Antique.’ A third lets us know how much we are obliged to the Legislature, ‘that he is now enabled to offer Pomatum to the public agreeable to the commercial Treaty’.... What Lady, ‘who excites admiration on account of the superior charms that animate her Complexion,’ can withstand an Advertisement of the Palmyrene Soap? Every systematical old Fellow that wishes to know the exact number of yards which he walks in a day, will certainly furnish himself with ‘the Pedometer, or Way-wiser.’ And I make no manner of doubt that all the Gentlemen Sportsmen of this University will find it impossible to resist the persuasive nonsense and absurdity of ‘Guns matchless for shooting; or twisted barrels, bored on an improved plan, that will always maintain their true velocity, and not let the Birds fly away after being shot, as they generally do with Guns not properly bored, this method of boring Guns will enable every Shooter to Kill his Bird, as they are sure of their mark at ninety yards; he bores any sound Barrel for Two Guineas, and he makes them much stronger than before.’ If we take this Fellow’s own word we must allow him, without a pun, to be the greatest Borer in the kingdom.”
The system of “tick” seems to have been very simple. It was only necessary to enter a shop and order things in large quantities for the tradesman to allow credit. In the case of dirty Dick, who was lured into becoming a fop by the report of the appreciative remarks which the lady Flavia was supposed to have made about him, the only thing which had to be done to gull the ever-obliging tradesman was to spread a rumour that the sloven had come in for a legacy. The result was instantaneous, and Dick became a Smart; but whether anybody was ever paid is not on record. The various inns, ale-houses, coffee-houses and wig-makers had little need to advertise. The Undergraduates did that for them. In nearly every poem and sonnet that ever was written the praises are sung of Tom’s or James’s or Clapham’s or Lyne’s or Hamilton’s, while the great Tom Warton immortalises three “Peruke-Makers” in his Ode to a Grizzle-Wig.
“Can thus large wigs our Reverence engage?
Have Barbers thus the Pow’r to blind our Eyes?
Is Science thus conferr’d on every Sage,
By Bayliss, Blenkinsop, and lofty Wise?”