England's debt to America in the domain of invention was not confined to mechanical labour-saving appliances. The inventiveness of the American journalist repeatedly extorts the reluctant admiration of Punch from 1857 onwards. In the summer of 1858 he culls a gorgeous example of the high art of sensational reporting from a New York paper in which it was stated that six people were butchered by a man who blew his brains out, yet "at the latest date all the sufferers were in a fair way of recovery." Yet in their own way the English penny-a-liners were capable of fine work. In December of the same year Punch quotes the following from the account of an agricultural show in a daily paper:—
"Yesterday the gold medal pen of pigs was denuded of one of its finest specimens, one of those most extraordinary animals having expired from its obesity during the previous night. There were other demises from apoplexy amongst the porcine confraternity during the show."
The Press Surpasses Itself
It was in the Victorian age, again—though unknown to Punch—that the reporter of an Irish paper concluded his description of a burglary with the words, "after a fruitless search, all the money was recovered except one pair of boots." But the supremacy of the New World in this field was conclusively established in the year 1869, the annus mirabilis for ever memorable by its association with the greatest of all American advertisements. Fragments of this classic are familiar even to the present generation, but we are, thanks to Punch, able to give the original text in its entirety:—
Among those of our institutions that are especially getting Americanized is a part of our Press, professing to afford us information which it calls "reliable" and also abounding in announcements on which we may rely if their phraseology strikes us as the language of truth and honesty. Some of these notifications are formed on models, whereof a contemporary quotes an example:—
"A wonderful Medicine. The following advertisement is from a recent issue of a New York paper:—'If you want a really pure unsophisticated "family pill," buy Dr. R——'s liver-encouraging, kidney-persuading, silent perambulator—twenty-seven in a box. This pill is as mild as a pet-lamb, and as searching as a small tooth-comb. It don't go fooling about, but strictly attends to business, and is as certain as an alarm clock.'"
Puffery, resembling, if not quite equalling, that above instanced, in wit and humour, is fast gaining ground among us. America has taught us how to advertise. Thank Barnum. We have been, and are continuing to be, Americanized. We are progressing.
SCIENCE APPLIED TO ART
Angelina Squills (the doctor's daughter) by a judicious use of her father's stethoscope, is able to detect and enjoy the delicate tenor voice of the interesting young curate who lodges next door.
One is glad that Punch recognized the "wit and humour" of this unique document, though he says nothing of its magical choice of words. Dr. R—— was Dr. Rumbold. But whether or no he composed the advertisement I have not been able to discover—or, indeed, anything about him. Perhaps it was his swan-song; like the Old Masters, who according to Artemus Ward executed the execrable paintings exhibited at his lecture as their crowning and final achievement: "they did them and then they died."
The Next Generation