[12] The royal arms appear at the head of this elegant announcement. (Query) Ought not the proper authorities to prohibit such vile use being made of the name of royalty.
[13] Query—Exaction principle.
[14] Were those individuals really manufacturers, they would not require a Licence to vend their articles. See Act of Parliament, 50 Geo. III. cap. 41, sec. 23. enacts: “Provided always, and it is hereby enacted, that nothing in this Act shall extend to prohibit any person or persons from selling any printed papers, licensed by authority, or any fish, fruit, or victuals; nor to hinder the real worker or workers, or maker or makers of any goods, wares, or manufactures of Great Britain, or his, her, or their children, apprentices, or known agents or servants usually residing with such real workers or makers only, from carrying abroad or exposing to sale, and selling by retail or otherwise, any of the said goods, wares, or manufactures of his, her, or their own making in any mart, market, or fair, and in every city, borough, town corporate, and market town. Nor any tinkers, coopers, glaziers, plumbers, harness makers, or other persons usually trading in mending kettles, tubs, household goods, or harness whatsoever, from going about and carrying with him, or them, proper materials for mending the same.”
[15] It is gratifying, however, to find that many editors of newspapers repudiate the iniquitous system, perceiving that their readers might justly look upon them as participators in the fraud.
One of the puffing, professional licensed hawkers entered the office of the Reading newspaper, and with the authoritative air of an Alexander, desired that his announcement should appear in the front column, and the usual laudatory paragraph in another part of the paper. He was informed that his advertisement could be inserted, but that the proprietors had determined never to admit such insidious clap-trap notices, which, while they injured the resident tradesman, and were looked upon as the bona fide opinions of the editor, generally referred to matters of which he could not honestly express a favourable opinion. The pedlar stood aghast! “What,” said he, “not put in a paragraph? Why, I’d sooner pay for a good paragraph than care about the advertisement at all.”
His professional visit was of unusually short duration, finding it impossible to bribe the press to trumpet forth his praise.
CHAPTER VII.
“It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors and extreme absurdities men do commit for want of a friend to tell them of the same! The help of good counsel is that which setteth business straight.”—Bacon.
I have, for many years, visited nearly every town in the kingdom, on commercial pursuits, at intervals of six months; and wherever I have met with the brazen advertisers alluded to, I have issued public notices, and inserted counter-advertisements, to put my friends and the public on their guard against such egregious imposition. Such a step, spiritedly carried out, has uniformly proved successful, and the notable pretenders have decamped from Bath to Norwich, from Brighton to Carlisle, sometimes assuming other names, or changing the initial letters; as S. and E., who had been vapouring away at Norwich, suddenly flitted to Margate, and there announced themselves as C. and B., the celebrated opticians from the Royal Eye Infirmaries, &c. &c. For low cunning and unprincipled trickery, such adventurers as I have described, stand unrivalled. Upon several occasions they have echoed my cautions, and copied, word for word, remarks levelled at themselves; hoping thus to shield themselves from detection, and confuse the public in identifying them; as the pick-pocket, when the hue and cry is raised of stop-thief, joins in the shout, in order to allay suspicion.
It is in the provincial towns that such persons are most successful; the game is seldom played in the metropolis with so much effect; and although some of the tribe have been lately launching forth dashing advertisements in the London papers, it is understood to be with the design of attracting country customers, and overwhelming their dupes with an idea of their professional importance, rather than with the expectation of effecting sales in London.