The reader can imagine the flashing eyes and indignant face of a proud and wronged woman, as this is read; and it might well be taken as the text for a whole volume of a modern novel. The next which we select is still from the Times, and appeared several days in succession in February 1853. It forms a good companion to that which precedes it:
TO M. L. L.—M. L. L., you have chosen your own lot: may it be a happy one! and if it be so I would not have you think of the desolate heart you leave behind; but oh! my child, if sorrow should ever overtake you, if you should find, when too late, that you have been leaning on a broken reed; then, my Maria, come back to her whose heart has ever cherished you; she will always be ready to receive you.
Maybe M. L. L. has proved herself devoid of gratitude, and left a kind home to follow the fortunes of some adventurer. But the good heart of the advertiser does not turn sour, nor does she give vent to repining; and so even in advertisements do we see the finest as well as the worst sides of human nature. In the same paper that contained the address just given we stumbled across one of the most laconic notices ever seen. It says—
IF H. R. will Return, I will forgive him.
E. R.
This is evidently from a relenting parent, whose sternness has been subdued by the continued absence of his prodigal. Most likely the latter returned, and went away again as soon as “the guv’nor” showed signs of resuming sway. And so on through one of those wretched dramas with which all people must be acquainted, in which the principal characters are a broken-hearted mother, a worn-out and prematurely old father, and an utterly demoralised, drunken, and perhaps dishonest son, who is most likely a brutal husband as well. Of quite another kind is this, which is also from the Times:—
TO EQUATOR.—Fortuna audaces juvat. Vincit omnia veritas.—E. W.
As we have before remarked, the newspapers of to-day give us no such specimens of secret and mysterious advertising as those we have unearthed, although the opportunities are far more numerous than—and we presume the occasions quite as frequent as—they were twenty years ago, for every daily paper, and a good many of the weeklies, now keep special columns for the display of private announcements. Quite unique, however, in its way is one which appeared in Lloyd’s half-a-dozen years ago. It says that
HARRIET AND HARRY COMPTON
ARE well.—124, Stamford-street, Lambeth.