having the typical adornment in the shape of golden hair instead of a golden leg. This reference to poetry is of great advantage, as it puts us in a proper frame to consider the following: "Oh, woman, in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please; 9828 A Young WIDOW, highly connected, dark hair and eyes, considered pretty, good income, desires to marry, she does not deny that she might at times realize the two first lines of the couplet quoted above, but she can assure any gentleman willing to make the experiment that she is as certain to be true to the conclusion. Address with Editor. Even Scott has to succumb to the grammatical requirements of the marriage advocate and its readers; but the alteration from the original is as nothing compared with the reference to "the two first lines of the couplet." There is poetry of a different kind in the next specimen, which deserves particular attention : 45 I am a BACHELOR, 28, tall and gentlemanly. My income being £150 only (though prospects good), I seek an amiable, educated wife, with private means. Should 10,000, 9920, 9851, 9960, Geraldine, Miss Kate, Miss Maxwell, 9852, 9828, 9878, 9885, or other lady under 28, with at least £2,000 in own control, deem my position compatible with her views, I should much like to correspond. I am well educated, of refined and intellectual tastes, fond of literature and home, of sound moral principles, eschewing smoking, drinking, gambling, and all fast life delusions, of undoubted respectability, unquestionable honour and integrity, of equable temper, and kind, generous heart. Believing a true wife to be man's greatest blessing, I fully intend being a good husband or none at all, and shall treat my wife not merely with the courtesy due to a lady, but with the respectful consideration to a woman. As this is bona fide, inviolable honour observed and expected. Particulars of age, income, and disposition respectfully solicited. Address with Editor. O true poetic soul longing for a mate! O noble heart of undoubted respectability and unquestionable honour! may you go on and prosper! Even teetotalism can be fervid, and an equable temper may become quickened, when matrimony stirs up the feelings; and so catching is the impulse, that we should like to fold this young man to our breast, and present him with our favourite daughter. But she hasn't got £2000, and so, regretting the circumstance, we pass on to 8672 A PHYSICIAN of noble lineage (of French and English extraction), of statue about 5ft. 8 inches, aged 36 years, of dark complexion, with black hair and eyes, possessing a strong and healthy constitution, desires to form the acquaintance, with a view to matrimony, of a Lady from 19 to 23 or 24 years, who must be of a noble family or the upper class; brunette preferred, if not of a medium complexion with black or dark hair, and eyes having a fine physique, with some embonpoint, pretty, of an affectione disposition, with a heart true and loving, talented, speaking or understanding French and Italian, or the other foreign languages; in height about 5 feet 6 to 8 inches. Also must possess in her own right considerable fortune, and having no incumbrance preferred. In effect a Girl who can ever love a man with an affectionate disposition. Photograph and address with Editor. This noble physician evidently wishes for a wife whom he may eventually stuff and exhibit, even if he does not take her "round the country" during life. Few people would object to paying sixpence or so to see, among other things, eyes having a fine physique; and so we trust 8672 may get the wife he wishes for. She would, however, if existent, as a matter of natural selection prefer our next friend, and then they could mutually rejoice over each other's tastes and peculiarities: 9971 VEGETARIAN, a young man who does not use flesh as food; a Roman Catholic, humble, well-educated, and connected. A lover of temperance, truth, literature, fruit, flowers, and economy, income about £80 a year, wishes for a wife with similar tastes, principles, and income, or as nearly so as possible.-The address with Editor. The fact of being connected is such an entirely new qualification, that we feel compelled to pause and wonder; and this will be an opportunity for withdrawing from a perusal which is very fascinating, but which threatens to prolong this chapter unduly. There are many more noticeable advertisements, but those we have given will be sufficient to show the character of the newspaper from which we have selected them, as well as the credulity of its public, who are either gulled into paying for matrimonial applications, or deluded into purchasing it in the hope that by its means husbands or wives may be secured. That Oxford "double firsts," Cambridge wranglers, members of Parliament, military and naval officers of high rank, peers of the realm, and beneficed clergymen, would send twaddling and ungrammatical advertisements to this paper, so as to secure wives, we no more believe than we do that eminent authoresses and ladies of rank and property would avail themselves of its services to secure to themselves husbands. If we are wrong, and these advertisements are all bona fide, and what they profess to be, then a paternal Government, which legislates against betting and strong drink, which puts a tax on quack medicines, and subscribes to compulsory education, should fulfil its métier by preventing the public exposure of idiotcy we have just been contemplating, more especially as no good can possibly be the outcome of it. U CHAPTER XVIII. HANDBILLS, INSCRIPTIONS, ETC. NDER this head it is our intention to give some slight insight into peculiarities of a kind of advertising unconnected with newspapers, and independent of any of the subjects treated in preceding chapters. We set forth with a great variety of handbills, which seemed almost too extensive for use in this volume; but we have already got rid of so many that the task of disposal is considerably lightened-so lightened, indeed, by the absorption of many of the most characteristic into preceding pages, that by comparison with the original collection our present supply seems rather meagre. It will doubtless, however, be found sufficient for the requirements of readers. We have already given an outline of the history of advertising by means of bills and posters, and have referred to the gradual growth of the system of "billing" until it has attained its present proportions. This system, though regarded by the Board of Works as very objectionable, is far pleasanter than that adopted twenty years ago, when every billsticker considered it his bounden duty to overstick the placards of opponents, and when nothing but a long course of education, or a most vivid imagination, would enable the passer-by to read what was upon the dead walls and hoardings. The Board of Works certainly took the initiative at the wrong time at the time when improvement was vast and apparent to every one; but as it failed in its object, we may consider that public opinion has admitted the improvement, and no longer regards wall-advertising as a nuisance. The Board doubtless started on the idea at a time when placarding was a most decided scandal, but it— like most other committees-took so long to bring the idea to perfection, that the scandal had abolished itself long before the Board was ready to abolish it. Having already entered into full particulars as to the modes formerly adopted, and contrasted them with those in use at the present time, individual efforts at illuminating the public mind will now be found amply sufficient for our purpose. Some of these are, as all the world knows, extremely funny on account of the vagueness of the writers, and in that particular resemble many of those we have instanced from the columns of newspapers. A very few examples of this kind will suffice, and will pave the way for the heavier material. One of the best of those inscriptions, the comicality of which is founded upon ignorance, appeared in 1821, and was posted up by order of Lord Camden in that portion of the county of Kent which called him owner. It said: Notice is hereby given, that the Marquis of Camden (on account of the backwardness of the harvest) will not shoot himself, nor any of his tenants, till the 14th of September. We don't suppose that the Marquis had anything to do with the actual wording of the notice, but he has always been identified with it, and doubtless was cruelly badgered about it at the time. Another lordly notice of a similar kind appeared a few years back at Osterly Park, near Brentford, the seat of the Earl of Jersey, which gave the public this information: "Ten shillings reward.-Any person found trespassing on these lands or damaging these fences on conviction will receive the above reward. Dogs poisoned." Somebody once said that nobody expects to find education or ability in a lord, but that is because his household are expected to fulfil his duties properly. Lords would seem in imminent danger of having to pick up a little |