——If desired I’ll set down the places of abode, and I am sure ’twill be of good use: for I am often asked it.
Houghton was indeed so well aware of the utility of giving the addresses, that in order to render his paper more permanently useful, he published, apparently on his own account, not only the addresses of some of the principal shops, but also a list of the residences of the leading doctors. From this we gather that in June 1694 there were 93 doctors in and about London, also that Dr (afterwards Sir) Hans Sloane lived at Montague House (now the British Museum), Dr Radcliffe in Bow Street, and Dr Garth, by Duke Street. At the conclusion of this list the publisher says:—
——I shall also go the round, I. of Counsellors and Attorneys; II. of Surgeons and Gardiners; III. of Lawyers and Attorneys; IV. Schools and Woodmongers; V. Brokers, coaches and carriers, and such like, and then round again, beginning with Physitians.
Thus by untiring perseverance, and no small amount of thought and study, Houghton trained his contemporaries in the art of advertising, and made them acquainted with the valuable assistance to be derived from a medium which, as Alexis de Tocqueville remarks, drops the same thought into a thousand minds at almost the same period. Apart from the interest which his papers have on the subject we have been considering, they are full of graphic details which throw a clear and effective light on these old and bygone times. What can give a more vivid picture of the state of the roads in this country in winter-time, nearly two centuries ago, than the following notice extracted from the Collection for Husbandry and Trade, March 10, 1693:—
——Roads are filled with snow, we are forced to ride with the paquet over hedges and ditches. This day seven-night my boy with the paquet and two gentlemen were seven hours riding from Dunstable to Hockley, but three miles, hardly escaping with their lives, being often in holes and forced to be drawn out with ropes. A man and a woman were found dead within a mile hence. I fear I have lost my letter-carrier, who has not been heard of since Thursday last. Six horses lie dead on the road between Hockley and Brickhill, smothered. I was told last night that lately was found dead near Beaumarais three men and three horses.
At this picture of those good old times for which people who know nothing about them now weep, we will stop. The rest of the story, so far as the development of advertisements is concerned, will be told in strict chronological order.
[24] Broer Jansz styles himself “Couranteer in the Army of his Princely Excellence,” i.e., Prince Frederic Henry, the Stadtholder. Subsequently, in 1630, Jansz commenced a new series, which he entitled “Tidings from Various Quarters.”
[25] John Nicholl, in his “Literary Anecdotes,” vol. iv. p. 71, calls the editor of this paper Benjamin Harris, a well-known publisher of pamphlets in the reign of Charles II., and says that J. Knighton was the editor in 1692. This last name may be a clerical error for Houghton.