A History of Advertising from the Earliest Times.

by Henry Sampson

Another kind of scoundrel, whose victims are like those of the home-employment robbers, mostly poor helpless girls, and whose villany is far greater than that of the discreet Walter or the forcible Rawlings, is the fellow who advertises constantly for actors and actresses, who may be perfectly inexperienced, but who are to get salaried engagements through his influence. His form varies, but this is one of his concoctions, and is from the Daily Telegraph:—

THE STAGE.—WANTED, TWELVE LADIES and GENTLEMEN (ages 16 to 40) for salaried engagements. Totally inexperienced persons may apply.—Communicate, by letter only, enclosing photograph and thirteen stamps, Histrionicus ——.

This is either a swindle on the girls, or else on the members of the British public who pay their money to see acting. It is rumoured that now and again women moving in a certain hemisphere give large sums for the purpose of appearing on the stage. This may be, but we fancy the managers are quite shrewd enough not to let outsiders like the advertiser, Histrionicus, interfere in such delicate matters. It might be as well to ask why the “promotion in absentiâ” dodges are still allowed to parade themselves in the leading papers, or in fact why people should be permitted to take upon themselves titles they have no right to. Possibly the matter is thought too ridiculous to call for interference, but there are other qualities besides those of ridicule and contempt to be found in connection with the following, which is an advertisement having no particularly distinctive features, and therefore will represent the thousands of the same order that appear during the year, and for payment of which a considerable number of spurious degrees must be manufactured:—

PROMOTION IN ABSENTIÂ.—Qualified surgeons, chemists, dentists, oculists, chiropodists, and professors of music or arts aspiring to a doctor’s degree, may communicate by letter to Professor ——.

Qualified, forsooth! why, any one who liked to pay could obtain the most honourable degree for the biggest idiot in Earlswood Asylum. One of the chief difficulties to be encountered over such a bad business as this is that the good and the sham degree holders very often get irretrievably mixed up in certain phases of society. Physicians, surgeons, and gentlemen in similar position are protected, and so little dealing is done in medical, surgical, or chemical degrees; but bachelors and masters of arts and doctors of laws are made by the score, the recipients of honours being in a majority of cases men whose ignorance must be probed before it is appreciated, but whose depth requires no delving whatever. Now, when a man of this kind elects to call himself doctor, or puts B.A. or M.A. after his name, even those who know what little right he has to the degree are hardly quixotic enough to decline giving him the title he covets; so in a year or so, Dr Brown or Dr Jones has as firm a hold upon his title as if he had obtained it by a personal examination under the most rigorous system; and strangers who are unable to discover for themselves the unworthiness of the pretender, give him all the honours which belong to the learned. Sometimes the applicant swindles the professor, and we not long back heard of an aspiring youth who paid for the degrees of M.A. and LL.D. with a cheque and a bill, each being for £20, and both being dishonoured. It is a pity that these two scamps cannot be treated to three months in the House of Correction, just to encourage all other professors and practisers of small and paltry swindles.

There is yet another kind of rogue for whom we have room, who addresses his victims by means of advertisements. This is the sorrowful Christian, who makes the profession of religion his stock-in-trade, and finds it profitable. Under the guise of sanctity there is hardly anything at which he will stick—he is the foulest and nastiest of all the foul and nasty birds who have supplied material for this chapter. He is as great an impostor in his pretences as any of the other swindlers are in theirs, and so it would be just as fair to blame religion for the existence of the sanctimonious scoundrel, or commerce for the home-employment agent, as it is to blame racing for the welcher and the forcer. Here is a sample of the whining and despicable hound, compared with whom, to our taste, the ordinary pickpocket is a gentleman:—

TO THE LORD’S PEOPLE.—A dear Christian tradesman, who about four months ago drew from the Savings’ Bank £60, his all therein, to give to a fellow Christian who urgently required that sum, “thus lending and hoping for nothing again” but from a bountiful “God whose name is Love,” is now in WANT OF FORTY POUNDS to pay all demands upon him, ere he accepts a call to the ministry of the Everlasting Gospel, which he believes his Heavenly Father is about to make known unto him. A lady, his friend in Christ the Lord as revealed, in the power of God the Holy Ghost, thus ventures in simple faith to try the door of Providence in his behalf; and would leave the issue in the hands of Him who has heart, hand, breath and purse of men at sovereign command. The smallest help will be gratefully acknowledged by the Advertiser. Address to ——.

If this is not blasphemy, what is it? Imagine the greasy smirk of satisfaction with which the coin of the faithful was received and divided between the dear Christian tradesman and his lady friend. There is something suspiciously jocular about the wind-up of the application; but then, as an old proverb informs us, people who are doing well can afford the luxury of laughter. Another plan of the religious rascal is to answer applications for loans, and under the guise of philanthropy and Christianity to offer the required accommodation. By this means, and by the exhibition of certain forms, he obtains a deposit from the unfortunate would-be borrower, and decamps. This is, however, but a means of relaxation, and is simply indulged in at intervals, just to keep the hand in while more important business is in course of projection. The loan-office advertisements may to a certain extent be regarded as swindles, especially when they promise money without security. Depend upon it, no professional money-lender is likely to let out his cash without security any more than without interest. Still loan-office advertisers are not swindlers absolutely, as they do lend money and to some extent perform their contracts. The papers at the present time swarm with their advertisements, and the curious reader may inspect them as they appear, as for obvious reasons we must decline making a selection, which might be the reverse of judicious, more especially as the notices do not come strictly within our limits. Now and again temporary offices are started, generally in poor neighbourhoods, for the purpose of bagging the inquiry fees, and with no intention whatever of lending money. Their general ultimatum is, “Security offered insufficient;” and a good story is told of a gentleman who from motives of curiosity applied for a loan of £5, and gave as guarantors two of the most notoriously wealthy bankers of the City. In due course he received the usual notification, that the security offered was not sufficiently “responsible,” and that the accommodation could not therefore be afforded.

This brings us to the end of our list of swindlers and thieves; and if we have succeeded in our endeavour to show that the advertising rogue belongs to no particular class or profession, and that it is idle to assume that any rank or class is answerable for him, we shall be well satisfied. To our mind, and we have studied the subject rather closely, the advertising swindler is a swindler per se, and attaches himself to anything which offers a return, without caring what its title so long as it has claims to attention. It would be a great pity, therefore, to assume that these men have anything to do with the respectable forms of the professions—from sporting to religion—they from time to time adopt, and a great blunder to blame any body of respectable men because a lot of rogues choose to assume their business. As long as there are advertising swindlers, some profession or other must have the discredit of them.

There are, however, still advertisement swindles of a totally different description from any that have been here mentioned or referred to. There is the swindle of the newspaper proprietor who guarantees a circulation which has no existence, and who, when he takes the money of those who insert notices in his journal, knows that he is committing a deliberate and barefaced robbery. There are in London, at the present time, papers that have absolutely no circulation, in the proper sense of the word, whatever; and of which only a sufficient number of copies is printed to supply those who advertise in them, according to the custom observed in many offices. The readers, therefore, pay a rather heavy premium for the privilege of perusing each other’s announcements. It may seem that this state of affairs cannot possibly continue long; but whatever theorists may make of it, we can speak with confidence of more than six papers which to our knowledge have possessed no buyers whatever for more than six years, yet their proprietors get good livings out of them—better, perhaps, than they would if sale and not swindle was the reason of their being—and calculate on continuing this state of things for their time at all events. After them the deluge may come as soon as it likes. We remember quite well an office in which six of these newspapers were printed—that is, supposed to be printed, for with the exception of an alteration of title and a rearrangement of columns, and with, very rarely, the substitution of a new leading article for an old one, these six newspapers were all one and the same to the printers. Now, of course, had there been any chance of one man buying two copies of this instrument of robbery under any two of its distinct names, the swindle would have run some risk of being exposed; but so far as we could discover, there was no desire ever shown to buy even one, the circulation being exclusively among the advertisers. A very small circulation which finds its way in any particular direction may often be far more useful to one who wishes his notice to travel that way than would the largest circulation in the world; but the intensest of optimists could hardly discern any likelihood of benefit in the system just noticed.