FOR the compliment of One Hundred Guineas, any enterprizing Gentleman or Lady may have revealed to them an eligible method of converting hundreds into Thousands, in a few weeks, and of continuing so to do yearly. The requiring so inadequate a consideration, is because the proposer is under misfortunes. Only letters with real names and residencies will be regarded. Direct for W. W., at the King’s Bench Coffee-House.
In the early part of 1778 (May 7) the Morning Post contained the following appeal for an article which has been scarce ever since the world began, which is not valued much when possessed, and which is about the last thing one could hope to obtain through the medium of an advertisement, no matter how cunningly contrived, nor how great the circulation of the paper in which it appeared:—
WANTED immediately, the most difficult thing to be met with in the world, A Sincere Friend, by a person, who, though in the meridian of life, has outlived all he had. He wishes to meet with a Person in whom he may repose the most implicit Confidence; a Person who has a good heart, and abilities to second that goodness of heart; who will give his advice cordially, and assistance readily. The advertiser is a person in a genteel situation of life; has a decent income, but is at present so circumstanced as to want a sincere friend.—Any Person willing (from principles of Friendship, not Curiosity) to reply to the above, by directing a line to T. S., at Mr Sharp’s, stationer, facing Somerset House, Strand, will be immediately waited on or properly replied to.
Money, the sincerest of all friends, is probably the object of T. S.’s ambition. If he was not suited in the year ’78, an opportunity occurred soon after; for specially directed to the cupidity of persons who desire to get money, and are not at all particular what the means so long as the end is attained, is the following, which appears in the Morning Post of March 1779:—
A GENTLEMAN of Fortune, whom Family reasons oblige to drop a connection which has for some time subsisted between him and an agreeable young Lady, will give a considerable sum of Money with her to any Gentleman, or person in genteel Business, who has good sense and resolution to despise the censures of the World, and will enter with her into the Holy state of Matrimony. Letters addressed to Mr G. H., at the Cecil Street Coffee-House, will be paid due attention to.
As this kind of arrangement has not yet fallen into desuetude, although the aid of advertisements is no longer invoked for it, we had better not give an opinion about its morality, though it is but fair to admit that if the system of selling soiled goods, of which the foregoing is an example, had but been out of date, we should have been loud in our objections. For no vice is so bad as one that has exploded, and the weaknesses which we can regard with complacency while they are current, cause strong emotions of disgust when, their day being over, we look back upon them, and wonder how people could have been so extremely wicked. About the same time, and in the same paper, is another application of a peculiar nature, though in this instance the advertiser wishes not to part with, but to obtain a similar commodity to that advertised by G. H. This is it:—
A SINGLE Gentleman of Fortune, who lives in a genteel private style, is desirous of meeting with an agreeable genteel young Lady, of from 20 to 30 years of age, not older, to superintend and take upon her the management of his House and Servants, for which she will be complimented with board, &c. As the situation will be quite genteel, it will not suit any but such who has had a liberal Education, and who has some independance of her own, so as to enable her always to appear very genteel, and as a relation or particular friend, in which character she will always be esteemed, and have every respect paid her, so as to render the situation and every thing else as agreeable as possible.
Any lady inclining to the above, will please to direct with name and address, to M. H., Esq., to be left at No. 7, the Bookseller’s, in Great Newport Street, near St Martin’s Lane; she will be waited on, or wrote to, but with the greatest delicacy, and every degree of strict honour and secrecy.
Strict honour and secrecy seems to be an essential to the successful completion of the designs of many advertisers of this time, but they are to be all on one side, in company with an amount of blind credulity which would be wonderful if it were not repeatedly exhibited in modern days. Here is an honourable and secret venture which appears in the Morning Post of December 17, 1779, and which was doubtless very successful:—
A GENTLEMAN who knows a Method which reduces it almost to a certainty to obtain a very considerable sum, by insuring of Numbers in the Lottery, is advised by his Friends to offer to communicate it to those who wish to speculate in that Way. The advantage that is procured by proceeding according to his Principles and Directions, will be plainly demonstrated and made perfectly evident to any who chuses to be informed of it. The terms are Ten Guineas each person, and they must engage not to discover the plan for the space of eighteen months. If those who are willing to agree to the above terms will be pleased to address a line to J. R. C. at the Union Coffee-House, Cornhill, or the York Coffee House, St James’s Street, they will be immediately informed where to apply. Those who have lost money already (by laying it out improperly) insuring of Numbers, may soon be convinced how much it will be to their advantage to apply as above.