AT the Golden Dove, in Hanover Street, Long Acre, Makes Tabby all over for £1, 13s. 0d., for large sizes £1, 16s. 0d.; ticken backs £1, 7s. 0d., for large sizes two or three shillings advance, with the very best of goods and the very best of work; neither would I accept a ship-load of the second-best bone, and be obliged to use it, to deceive people, nor tabby nor trimming. I am willing to produce receipts in a court of justice for tabby, bone, &c., and be entirely disannulled business, or counted an impostor and a deceiver, if I act contrary to what I propose; which if I did I should be guilty of nothing but deceit, nor nothing less than fraud, and so don’t ought to be allowed; but I can give the direct contrary proofs; for I can prove I have had eighteen measures at a time by me since Christmas, for people as I have made for several times before, and all the winter never less than five or six in a week, often more, all old customers; and in consideration its all for ready money, it shows a prodigious satisfaction. I buy for ready money, and that commands the best of goods, and the allowance made in consideration thereof.
Mr Ward speaks like a conscientious man, but so do most of the manufacturers of female apparel—or at least they endeavour to—who advertise. The General Advertiser was started in 1745, and its title indicates the purpose for which it was intended. It was “the first successful attempt to depend for support upon the advertisements it contained, thereby creating a new era in the newspaper press. From the very outset its columns were filled with them, between fifty and sixty, regularly classified and separated by rules, appearing in each publication; in fact the advertising page put on for the first time a modern look. The departure of ships is constantly notified, and the engravings of these old high-pooped vessels sail in even line down the column. Trading matters have at last got the upper hand. You see ‘a pair of leather bags,’ ‘a scarlet laced coat,’ ‘a sword,’ still inquired after; and theatres make a show, for this was the dawning of the age of Foote, Macklin, Garrick, and most of the other great players of the last century; but, comparatively speaking, the gaieties and follies of the town ceased gradually from this time to proclaim themselves through the medium of advertisements.” The great earthquake at Lisbon so frightened people about this time that a law was passed prohibiting masquerades; and the other means of amusement, the china auctions, the rope-dancing, the puppet shows, and the public breakfasts, became scarcer and scarcer as a new generation sprang into being, and the padded, powdered, and patched ladies of high descent and doubtful reputation faded from the world of fashion. This, however, was a work of time, and the crop of noticeable advertisements, though smaller, is still sufficiently large for the purpose of making extracts.
Continuing, then, on our way, we do not travel far from the staymaker’s announcement, and are still in the same month, when we drop upon a notice which requires no explanation, so well does it apply itself to the minds of those whom it may concern. It runs thus:—
WHEREAS Ministers of State and other persons in power are often importuned for places and preferments which are not in their disposal, and whereas many Gentlemen waste their lives and fortunes in a long but vain dependance on the Great; This is to give notice, that in order to preserve the suitors, on the one hand, from such disappointments, and the vexation, expense, and loss of time with which they are attended; and men in power, on the other, from being solicited on matters not in their department of business:
At No. 15, one pair of stairs, in the King’s-bench Walk, in the Temple, gentlemen at an easy charge may be informed what is in their patrons’ power to bestow, and what with consistency and propriety they may ask for; (either civil, ecclesiastical, or military, by land or sea, together with the business of each employment, salaries, fees, &c.) as also by what methods to apply, and obtain a speedy and definite answer.
At the same place the most early and certain intelligence may be had of the vacancies which occur in all public offices. Those who have any business to transact with the Government, may be put into the easiest and readiest way to accomplish it, and those who have places to dispose of may depend on secrecy and always hear of purchasers.
N.B.—At the same place, accompts depending in Chancery, or of any other kind, are adjusted; as likewise the business of a money scrivener transacted, in buying and selling estates, lending money upon proper securities, and proper securities to be had for money.
This agency, if properly conducted, must have been as convenient for patrons as for place applicants, and doubtless the “ministers of State and other persons in power” must often have been astonished to discover what power they really possessed, which discovery would never have been made had it not been for the services of the gentleman up one pair of stairs.
In January 1752, the widow Gatesfield discovered the advantage likely to accrue from the quotation in an advertisement of any independent testimony, no matter how remote, and so being anxious to acquaint the public with the superiority of the silver spurs, for fighting cocks, manufactured at her establishment, she concluded her announcement in the Daily Advertiser as follows:—
☞ Mr Gatesfield was friend and successor to the late Mr Smith mentioned in Mr Hallam’s ingenious poem called the Cocker, p. 58.