In the same style was almost every other description; and though embarrassed by the quantity as well as quality we have to choose from, we cannot pass over this bit of word-painting, which is rich in description. It is from the Mercurius Politicus of July 1658:—
ONE Eleanor Parker (by birth Haddock), of a Tawny reddish complexion, a pretty long nose, tall of stature, servant to Mr Ferderic Howpert, Kentish Town, upon Saturday last, the 26th of June, ran away and stole two Silver Spoons; a sweet Tent-work Bag, with gold and silver Lace about it, and lined with Satin; a Bugle work-Cushion, very curiously wrought in all manners of slips and flowers; a Shell cup, with a Lyon’s face, and a Ring of silver in its mouth; besides many other things of considerable value, which she took out of her Mistresses Cabinet, which she broke open; as also some Cloaths and Linen of all sorts, to the value of Ten pounds and upwards. If any one do meet with her and please to secure her, and give notice to the said Ferderic Howpert, or else to Mr Malpass, Leather seller, at the Green Dragon, at the upper end of Lawrence Lane, he shall be thankfully rewarded for his pains.
But besides the ravages of small-pox, the hue and cry raised after felons exhibits an endless catalogue of deformities. Hardly a rogue is described but he is “ugly as sin.” In turning over these musty piles of small quarto newspapers which were read by the men of the seventeenth century, a most ill-favoured crowd of evil-doers springs up around us. The rogues cannot avoid detection, if they venture out among good citizens, for they are branded with marks by which all men may know them. Take the following specimens of “men of the time.” The first is from the London Gazette of January 24-28, 1677:—
ONE John Jones, a Welchman, servant to Mr Gray, of Whitehall, went away the 27th with £50 of his master’s in silver. He is aged about 25 years, of a middle stature, something thick, a down black look, purblind, between long and round favoured, something pale of complexion, lank, dark, red hair; a hair-coloured large suit on, something light; a bowe nose a little sharp and reddish, almost beetle brow’d and something deaf, given to slabber in his speech. Whoever secures the said servant and brings him to his master, shall have £5 reward.
This portrait was evidently drawn by an admirer; and it is with evident pleasure that the artist, after describing the “lank, dark, red hair,” and the suit like it, returns to the charge, and gives the finishing touches to the comely features. Here is another pair of beauties, whose descriptions appear in the Currant Intelligence, March 6-9, 1682:—
SAMUEL SMITH, Scrivener in Grace Church Street, London, about 26 years old, crook-backed, of short stature, red hair, hath a black periwig and sometimes a light one, pale complexion, Pock-holed full face, a mountier cap with a scarlet Ribbon, and one of the same colour on his cravat and sword, a light coloured campaign coat faced with blue shag, in company with his brother John Smith, who has a slit in his nose, a tall lusty man, red hair, a sad grey campaign coat, a lead colour suit lined with red: they were mounted, one on a flea-bitten grey, the other on a light bay horse.
For powers of description this next is worthy of study. It is contemporary with the other:—
WILLIAM WALTON, a tall young man about sixteen years of age, down-look’d, much disfigured with the Small-pox, strait brown hair, black rotten teeth, having an impediment in his speech, in a sad coloured cloth sute, the coat faced with shag, a white hat with a black ribbon on it, went away from his master, &c. &c.
And so on, as per example; the runaways and missing folk—for all that are advertised are not offenders against the law—seem to have exhausted the whole catalogue of human and inhuman ugliness. By turns the attention of the public is directed to a brown fellow with a long nose, or with full staring grey eyes, countenance very ill-favoured, having lost his right eye, voice loud and shrill, teeth black and rotten, with a wide mouth and a hang-dog look, smutty complexion, a dimple in the top of his nose, or a flat wry nose with a star in it, voice low and disturbed, long visage, down look, and almost every other objectionable peculiarity imaginable. What a milk-and-water being our modern rough is, after all!
Dr Johnson, in a bantering paper on the art of advertising, published in the Idler, No. 40, observes: “The man who first took advantage of the general curiosity that was excited by a siege or battle to betray the readers of news into the knowledge of the shop where the best puffs and powder were to be sold, was undoubtedly a man of great sagacity, and profound skill in the nature of man. But when he had once shown the way, it was easy to follow him.” Yet it took a considerable time before the mass of traders could be brought to understand the real use of advertising, even as the great Doctor understood it. Even he could hardly have comprehended advertising as it is now. The first man who endeavoured to systematically convince the world of the vast uses which might be made of this medium was Sir Roger L’Estrange. That intelligent speculator, in 1663, obtained an appointment to the new office of “Surveyor of the Imprimery and Printing Presses,” by which was granted to him the sole privilege of writing, printing, and publishing all narratives, advertisements, mercuries, &c. &c., besides all briefs for collections, playbills, quack-salvers’ bills, tickets, &c. &c. On the 1st of August 1663 appeared a paper published by him, under the name of the Intelligencer, and on the 24th of the same month the public were warned against the “petty cozenage” of some of the booksellers, who had persuaded their customers that they could not sell the paper under twopence a sheet, though it was sold to them at about a fourth part of that price. The first number of the Newes (which was also promoted by Sir Roger L’Estrange) appeared September 3, 1663, and, as we are told by Nicholls in his “Literary Anecdotes,” “contained more advertisements of importance than any previous paper.” Still, the benefit of the publicity which might be derived from advertising was so little understood by the trading community of the period, that after the Plague and the Great Fire this really valuable means of acquainting the public with new places of abode, the resumption of business, and the thousand and one changes incidental on such calamities, were almost entirely neglected. Though nearly the entire city had been burnt out, and the citizens must necessarily have entered new premises or erected extempore shops, yet hardly any announcements appear in the papers to acquaint the public of the new addresses. The London Gazette, October 11-15, 1666, offered its services, but hardly to any effect; little regard being paid to the following invitation:—