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has made wanderers of the old warm-hearted coterie. Why will people "restore" and improve the few comfortable old taverns still left about London, and drive honest folk from the snug and unpretending corners they have occupied for years? This same restoration is shortsighted and impolitic. The houses become nondescript; they are too modern, and perhaps too respectable, for the old customers, not glaring and gassy enough for the new; and so they stand, with just sufficient about them to remind us of the joys that are past, and not enough to tempt us to renew them in the future.

Turning from taverns, coal-holey and otherwise, we have finally to notice that kind of advertising which is the result of an attempt to make profit out of others' misfortunes. At the time, but a very few years back, of the Overend and Gurney failure, an enterprising linen-draper in the North-West district of London put forth the following handbill (p. 555), which was of large size, surrounded by a thick black mourning border, and which, in addition to being given away, was sent about by post. For reasons which are obvious, we have changed the names, and have no hesitation in giving an opinion that the proceeding was a very sharp bit of business, worthy of the hero of the wooden nutmegs.

It was followed by a long list of the goods to be sold, with the market prices and those at which they were offered, the practice of making up two sets of figures on goods having been found very efficacious of late years. This brings us well up to the present time, and as that is quite capable of taking care of itself without any assistance from us, we will conclude, in the hope that, though we have perforce passed many interesting specimens by, our selection, considering the space at command, has not been in any way injudicious.

The Overend Gurney & Co. Disaster.

LAMENTABLE CASE OF RUIN AND DEATH.

THE "STANDARD" of the 29th ultimo, truly ob

serves

*

*

*

*

"Difficult indeed would it be to exaggerate the extent of the mischief that was done by the fall of the great house which had for generations stood firm as a rock nor would it be easy to adequately describe the woe and desolation, the loss and ruin, consequent upon the suspension and disastrous liquidation of the Company."

A more distressing case than the one in question it is impossible to conceive.It is briefly told.—An old-established Linen Draper of the City of London, (Mr. JOB HUCKABACK), had invested the Savings of a life-time in the Overend Gurney Scheme. The result is known. Still his Business remained, and he might have struggled on, but further calls being imminent, his last hope was crushed, so, Bankrupt and broken-hearted, he died,-leaving a wife and five young children to the mercy of fate.

The Trade Creditors have done what they can by waiving all claims upon the Estate, and have generously resolved that the Stock shall be sold for the benefit of the Widow and Children. THE STOCK, WHICH IS HIGHLY CHOICE AND VALUABLE, HAS BEEN ENTRUSTED TO

MR. CHARLES MARTEL,

With prompt Orders TO REALISE AT ONCE ON
ANY TERMS.

THE FIRST GRAND SALE OF SELECTED GOODS WILL BE

HELD IN THE

Large Assembly Room of the

Hotel, N.W.

(Ladies may avoid passing through the Hotel, by presenting enclosed Card to Messenger at Private Door.) On Monday, 1st, Tuesday, 2nd, Wednesday, 3rd, and Thursday, 4th March,

From Ten a.m. till Dusk each Day, closing on Thursday, at 5 p.m., prompt, not a minute later.

The Sale will be by Private Treaty, thus affording Ladies leisure to freely inspect. Although prices are quoted as a guide, NO OFFER WILL BE REJECTED, AS EVERYTHING MUST BE SOLD in

THE BRIEF TIME SPECIFIED.

CHAPTER XIX.

AMERICAN AND COLONIAL ADVERTISEMENTS.

N such a go-ahead nation as the United States, it is only natural that advertising should be a very important feature of its business arrangements; and in perusing most of the papers which have travelled across the Atlantic, we find that our cousins have what are called much broader notions concerning the duties of advertisements than we have. The word broader we use in its conventional sense, and without any wish to take responsibility upon ourselves; for the so-called broader view is, after all, only the view which will be found expressed in those of our pages which contain notices published a hundred years ago. So that perhaps, after all, the broader view is our modern view; for it is, or certainly should be, the improved view. In course of time the American press may adopt the plan now in use here so far as regards all the papers which we consider representative, that of having an outward and visible show of decency in the advertisement columns, no matter what darkness or danger lurks beneath. With very few exceptions, the papers which come from the United States —we refer not to the hole-and-corner but to the high-class, which are widely read and disseminated among family circles -contain advertisements which would be rejected by the gutter journals of this country. A hundred years ago, as we have said and instanced, our papers were not at all particular, so long as they could get advertisements, what they took; now a sense of what is right and proper compels

I a

them to refuse many notices which would be highly paid for-would be paid any price for—and in time the American press will doubtless follow the self-abnegating example. The broadened view we think, therefore, is ours, yet our style is often referred to as narrow-minded. The narrow mind is that which sacrifices its honour and credit in its greed for immediate profit and hunger after the almighty dollar.

For many reasons there is a great difficulty in dealing with American advertisements. Sometimes they are too long for quotation, at other times they are too broad; and very often one is not quite sure whether or not it is a really bona fide advertisement he is reading, or only an expression of gratitude from an editor for the favours he has received or fondly anticipates. American editors have peculiar notions on the subject of advertisements and the duties of advertisers. In a New York journal which boldly announces itself as the American Gentleman's Newspaper, there is, or used to be, an editorial notice which informs all whom it most concerns, that, so as to meet the requirements of the family circle, and so that the paper may be left upon every gentleman's breakfast-table, the use of the name of the Deity is expressly forbidden in the advertising or other columns. We quote from memory, but if these are not the exact words, the line of argument-if argument such a non sequitur can be called-is identical with that used by Mr Wilkes, the proprietor and editor of this model and gentlemanly paper. It would be well, however, if the American lady's newspaper erred in no greater particular than the American gentleman's does. For the honour of America it is to be sincerely hoped that its ladies know nothing of the sheets which are flaunted here with the names of women as the editors, and which are said to be written especially for women. It is hard to believe that any sane creature, much more a woman, could write such festering scurrility, such fatuous blasphemy, and such shameless

indecency and advocacy of open adultery as appear in the columns of one at least of these women's journals; but it is easy to imagine that a few besotted females, suffering from erotic and other dementia, should exhibit themselves to the scornful gaze of the virtuous or the only moderately vicious for the purpose of obtaining notoriety-far easier than to believe that the women of America are the readers of and subscribers to these papers and their opinions. We are quite sure that no woman worthy of the name would look a second time at the organ of Victoria C. Woodhull and Tennie C. Claflin-quite as sure as that the two persons we have named are, with their followers, quite unfit to be regarded as women. We have referred to this paper and its "editors" because it and they represent a class of journals and journalists which are, unfortunately for Americans, too apt to be taken as standard representatives of the type, and from no desire to accord them the spurious celebrity they so anxiously covet.

Still, without wishing to impute anything like iniquity to American newspapers generally, it must be admitted that the vast majority of them have rather lax notions of propriety, and their motto being "Get money," they are apt to ignore the existence of ill in any advertisement, provided the presenter of it has his "pile" ready, and will "come down handsome." This is evident throughout the whole of the transatlantic news world; and though there are, we feel bound and are glad to admit, very honourable exceptions, they are but the exceptions which prove the rule. As the editors and proprietors generally accuse each other, they cannot feel annoyed if we, standing afar off, make our notes according to what they give us If they prefer to feel angry, however, we shall not stand in their way; but doubtless the majority are too intent on getting money to care much for what is said about them. Indeed there are many who exult in the notion of making capital by all kinds of advertisements, from the puff preliminary to the nauseat

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