It may be as well to mention here that Messrs Piesse and Lubin claim to be the originators of the enigmatical form of advertising. It was they who started the “Opoponax” mystery, which aroused public curiosity at the time, and has been considerably imitated since. Localities are sometimes used in advertisements as typifying the quality of the articles advertised; Mayfair Sherry is the chief representative of this class, and we suppose that the district is named as evidence of high tone and elegant bottling. Still another kind of advertising is that adopted by Brinsmead, who seems to be a regular champion among pianoforte-makers, and who makes curious little extracts bracketed opposite the names of papers and celebrities that give him testimonials, throughout a long newspaper column, all about his patent check repeater-action gold medal pianofortes. Sir Julius Benedict, the Examiner, Brinley Richards, the Standard, and Sydney Smith are among many other men and papers quoted. We are not aware who Sydney Smith may be nowadays, but should hardly think the great wit and essayist who died thirty years ago could have known enough about Brinsmead’s pianos to enable him to say “their touch is absolute perfection.”
Notwithstanding all that has been written and said about the value of newspaper notices as distinguished from advertisements, there is no reasonable room for doubt that a representative of the general advertising class would far sooner see his shop paraded in a pantomime, or hear himself referred to by a low comedian, than be recipient of really valuable attention at the hands of a newspaper writer. There are, of course, exceptions, and these reap the reward their rivals despise. The elder Mathews was a victim to the rather illogical rage for that phase of theatrical advertisement to which we have just referred. Amongst the extraordinary effects of his popularity, were applications made under every kind of pretext, letters being sent to him from all sorts of professors and tradesmen about town. One man offered him snuff for himself and friends for ever, if he would only mention the name and shop of the manufacturer. Another promised him a perpetual polish for his boots upon the same terms. He was solicited to mention every sort of exhibition, and to puff all the new quack medicines. The wines sent to him to taste, though alleged to be of the finest quality, nevertheless required “a bush,” which was to be hung out nightly at his “house of entertainment.” Patent filters, wigs and waistcoats, boots and boothooks, “ventilating hats” and “bosom friends,” all gifts, used to stock Mathews’s lumber-room. An advertising dentist one day presented himself, offering to find Mathews’s whole family in new teeth, and draw all the old, if the comedian would only in return draw the new patent mineral masticators into notice. In fact, Mathews was so inundated with presents, that his cottage sometimes looked like a bazaar, and his wife had frequently occasion to exercise her ingenuity in contriving how to dispose of the generally useless articles forced upon their acceptance.
Though this was a great many years ago, things remain much the same, and such popular entertainers as Fred Maccabe, and patterers as J. L. Toole, could doubtless sell themselves for large sums in the interests of vocal advertising. Managers invariably avail themselves of the opportunity whenever a chance occurs, as it does now and again in realistic drama, and very frequently in pantomime. Actors are, though, not alone the admiration of the advertiser—they are by no means above making a shrewd bid for popularity themselves by means of the papers. It is not so very long ago that a tragedian, more distinguished in the provinces than in London, and anxious to meet that metropolitan recognition which he felt sure he deserved, gave a small récherché banquet to his early friends at a well-known house near Lincoln’s-Inn Fields. Those who were invited must have felt very much like Mr Twemlow used whenever he visited the Veneerings, and those who were in a condition to think when they came away must have felt puzzled to account for the fact that all Mr ——’s early friends had taken to the dramatic-critic, the leader-writer, or the editor line of business—all but one, a kind of literary tradesman, who, however, possibly paid his half for the privilege of being admitted into such splendid society on equal terms, and who had, moreover, made out the list of diners, written the invitations, and maybe provided some of the clean linen. We tell the story as it was told us by two of the invited early friends, who added, that until the night of the dinner they had never seen Mr —— off the stage.
Taking a long stride from London to a Chinese seaport, we come upon this choice sample of Flowery Land English:—
祥泰隆記
Chong thie Loong kee.
Most humbly beg leave to acqu
: aint the Gentlemen trading to
this kort that the above mention
: ed chop has been long established
dnd is much esteemed for its Black
and young Hyson Tea but fearing
the foreigners might be cheated by tho
: se shumeless persons who forged this
chop he therefore take the liberty to
pallish these few lines for its
remark and trust.
To those who are interested in a peculiarity of advertising unknown in this country, we present the following from the Berlinische Zeitung:—