This noble physician evidently wishes for a wife whom he may eventually stuff and exhibit, even if he does not take her “round the country” during life. Few people would object to paying sixpence or so to see, among other things, eyes having a fine physique; and so we trust 8672 may get the wife he wishes for. She would, however, if existent, as a matter of natural selection prefer our next friend, and then they could mutually rejoice over each other’s tastes and peculiarities:—
9971 VEGETARIAN, a young man who does not use flesh as food; a Roman Catholic, humble, well-educated, and connected. A lover of temperance, truth, literature, fruit, flowers, and economy, income about £80 a year, wishes for a wife with similar tastes, principles, and income, or as nearly so as possible.—The address with Editor.
The fact of being connected is such an entirely new qualification, that we feel compelled to pause and wonder; and this will be an opportunity for withdrawing from a perusal which is very fascinating, but which threatens to prolong this chapter unduly. There are many more noticeable advertisements, but those we have given will be sufficient to show the character of the newspaper from which we have selected them, as well as the credulity of its public, who are either gulled into paying for matrimonial applications, or deluded into purchasing it in the hope that by its means husbands or wives may be secured. That Oxford “double firsts,” Cambridge wranglers, members of Parliament, military and naval officers of high rank, peers of the realm, and beneficed clergymen, would send twaddling and ungrammatical advertisements to this paper, so as to secure wives, we no more believe than we do that eminent authoresses and ladies of rank and property would avail themselves of its services to secure to themselves husbands. If we are wrong, and these advertisements are all bonâ fide, and what they profess to be, then a paternal Government, which legislates against betting and strong drink, which puts a tax on quack medicines, and subscribes to compulsory education, should fulfil its métier by preventing the public exposure of idiotcy we have just been contemplating, more especially as no good can possibly be the outcome of it.
[46] This Mrs Cornelys was a notoriety of the period. She lived at Carlisle House, Soho Square, where she, coming from Germany, of which country she was a native, settled in or about 1756. Her business was to entertain “the votaries of fashion of both sexes” with masked and other balls, and suchlike festivities. Mrs Cornelys seems to have thoroughly understood the advantages of judicious puffery, and her advertisements usually appeared as news paragraphs. On February 18, 1763, there appeared a good specimen of the kind of notice she most affected. It says, “On Saturday last Mrs Cornelys gave a ball at Carlisle House, to the upper servants of persons of fashion, as a token of the sense she has of her obligations to the nobility and gentry, for their generous subscription to her assembly. The company consisted of 220 persons, who made up fourscore couple in country dances; and as scarce anybody was idle on this occasion, the rest sat down to cards.” Carlisle House was kept open by means of annual subscriptions, and the fast young men of the period, and not a few older sinners, patronised the establishment. Rules and regulations were published, and from them we learn that members’ tickets were transferable provided the name of the holder was written on the back. There are in the papers between 1757 and 1772 frequent references to the grand doings at this notorious place of assignation; but notwithstanding all her customers and her various ways of making money, Mrs Cornelys’s name appears in a Gazette of November in the latter year among the bankrupts. She is described as “Teresa Cornelys, Carlisle House, St Ann, Soho, dealer.” This, however, says very little as to her success or the want of it, for bankruptcy meant anything but ruin a hundred years ago, if one had only money enough to break properly.
CHAPTER XVIII.
HANDBILLS, INSCRIPTIONS, ETC.
Under this head it is our intention to give some slight insight into peculiarities of a kind of advertising unconnected with newspapers, and independent of any of the subjects treated in preceding chapters. We set forth with a great variety of handbills, which seemed almost too extensive for use in this volume; but we have already got rid of so many that the task of disposal is considerably lightened—so lightened, indeed, by the absorption of many of the most characteristic into preceding pages, that by comparison with the original collection our present supply seems rather meagre. It will doubtless, however, be found sufficient for the requirements of readers. We have already given an outline of the history of advertising by means of bills and posters, and have referred to the gradual growth of the system of “billing” until it has attained its present proportions. This system, though regarded by the Board of Works as very objectionable, is far pleasanter than that adopted twenty years ago, when every billsticker considered it his bounden duty to overstick the placards of opponents, and when nothing but a long course of education, or a most vivid imagination, would enable the passer-by to read what was upon the dead walls and hoardings. The Board of Works certainly took the initiative at the wrong time—at the time when improvement was vast and apparent to every one; but as it failed in its object, we may consider that public opinion has admitted the improvement, and no longer regards wall-advertising as a nuisance. The Board doubtless started on the idea at a time when placarding was a most decided scandal, but it—like most other committees—took so long to bring the idea to perfection, that the scandal had abolished itself long before the Board was ready to abolish it. Having already entered into full particulars as to the modes formerly adopted, and contrasted them with those in use at the present time, individual efforts at illuminating the public mind will now be found amply sufficient for our purpose. Some of these are, as all the world knows, extremely funny on account of the vagueness of the writers, and in that particular resemble many of those we have instanced from the columns of newspapers. A very few examples of this kind will suffice, and will pave the way for the heavier material. One of the best of those inscriptions, the comicality of which is founded upon ignorance, appeared in 1821, and was posted up by order of Lord Camden in that portion of the county of Kent which called him owner. It said:—
Notice is hereby given, that the Marquis of Camden (on account of the backwardness of the harvest) will not shoot himself, nor any of his tenants, till the 14th of September.
We don’t suppose that the Marquis had anything to do with the actual wording of the notice, but he has always been identified with it, and doubtless was cruelly badgered about it at the time. Another lordly notice of a similar kind appeared a few years back at Osterly Park, near Brentford, the seat of the Earl of Jersey, which gave the public this information: “Ten shillings reward.—Any person found trespassing on these lands or damaging these fences on conviction will receive the above reward. Dogs poisoned.” Somebody once said that nobody expects to find education or ability in a lord, but that is because his household are expected to fulfil his duties properly. Lords would seem in imminent danger of having to pick up a little scholarship, and use it in the interest of their dependants. If so, polo and pigeon-shooting will languish, and West-End night-schools may become fashionable. But getting away from the aristocracy, and turning our attention to the other side of the social sphere, we don’t find matters anyway improved, if we are to judge by the specimens of literary ability which now and then address themselves to the curious pedestrian. In Lambeth the latter might some short time back have been terrified by an announcement in a baker’s shop, which informed all whom it might concern that vitals were baked there. Not so terrible, but more comical, is the following, which is copied from an announcement in the window of a shop at Chatham: “The public are requested not to confound this shop with that of another swindler who has established himself on the other side of the way.” There is a story told of two rival shoemakers, one of whom astonished his opponent by the inscription, “Mens conscia recti.” He was not allowed his triumph unalloyed, for the other, after puzzling over the notice for some days, divined that it was some new name for “understandings,” and feeling sure there was nothing in the opposition shop that was not in his own, replied with this, “Men’s and women’s conscia recti may be obtained here.” This story, however, requires confirmation, as does that of the two provincial photographers. One is said to have placed over his studio, “The acme of photography,” to which his enemy and neighbour replied, “Photography in the very height of acme.” Salt seems necessary to both of these, but we are informed on good authority that the next one is quite true. A correspondent says that the following is a verbatim copy of a sign formerly to be seen over a shoemaker’s shop in the village of Heallan, near Denbigh, Wales. The schoolmaster would seem to have been a long way abroad when the sign was composed:—