A STRANGER in New-York desires a few lady correspondents whom he can call upon, and who would be pleased to accompany him to theatres, &c. Address ——, New-York University.
A YOUNG MAN of refined taste would like to meet with a good-looking lady (not above twenty) who is engaged during the day. Address, appointing interview, ——, No. 4, Mercury office.
A LADY would like to meet with a gentleman who would thoroughly appreciate her exclusive society. For particulars, address ——, Box 2, No. 688 Broadway.
“These are but fair specimens of columns of such advertisements which have for years appeared in the successive issues of The Mercury. The publishers put over them the head ‘Matrimonial,’ but the advertisers do not countenance that fraud. They use The Mercury and pay for it as though it were a house of infamous resort; and, if there be any moral difference between permitting this use and keeping a house of ill-fame, we cannot see it. We do not doubt that at least One Thousand foolish girls have been ruined through the instrumentality of these shameful advertisements. Must not that be a monstrous dispensation of justice which, while Rosenzweig is (most righteously) sent to State Prison, should send Cauldwell to the Senate? What do you think of it? Electors of Westchester, Putnam, and Rockland Counties! read the above advertisements carefully, and say whether you can aid the election of Cauldwell to the Senate without sharing his guilt? Do not pretend ignorance of his iniquities: for above is the evidence which no man can gainsay. There are more such in this week’s issue, as there have been in every issue of that sheet for years. Fathers, brothers, pure men of every degree! read those infamous advertisements carefully, and then judge if you can vote to send their publisher to the Senate!” This is all very well, and extremely virtuous, but in the high-class daily journal from which it is taken there are plenty of advertisements of a character anything but beyond reproach. We are far from wishing to uphold the character of the Mercury, which is no more and no less than a Pandarus among papers, but the axiom, “Physician, heal thyself,” will apply to the champion of outraged innocence just quoted.
An astonishingly elaborate way of bringing the “puff pars” of enterprising and liberal tradesmen under immediate notice is shown in a weekly, possessed of considerable notoriety, that is published in California. This paper, the San Francisco Newsletter, has several times with pleasing candour informed the world that its opinions and advocacy are within easy purchase. Which means that those who do not think its friendship worth buying had better beware of its animosity. For those who doubt this we reproduce the following, which was probably placed on the front page of the Newsletter because the directors of the company referred to refused to patronise that organ of publicity, and which has now been running for some time:—
A PERMANENT PARAGRAPHIC ADVERTISEMENT.
[RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE SPRING VALLEY WATER WORKS.]
A miner’s inch of water is about twenty thousand gallons. The usual price for an inch of water in the mines is ten cents. The Spring Valley Company sells water in large quantities at seventy-five cents per thousand gallons, or at fifteen dollars seventy-five cents per inch—which is one hundred and fifty-seven times the price which miners pay. Furnished in small quantities to housekeepers, the Company charges from thirty to fifty dollars an inch—five hundred times the miners’ rates. Ignotus.