THE HORRORS OF STREET ADVERTISEMENTS.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 3, Issue 126, 28 February 1880, Page 2

THE HORRORS OF STREET ADVERTISEMENTS.

(From the " Saturday Roviow.") There is a natural dowdiuess about tho streets of Loudon, especially in autumoi which in perhaps incurable. Tho fogj tlio dankn«Sß breathed by tho river, tUo moulding loaves which are blown out ot the square gardens, and obliged to decay in company with scraps of newspaper all help to make London sombre and W»" eidal. Thoro are not many carriag o " abroad, the roads are barricaded in overy diroctioii, the shops have a Bulky air, *• if the proprietors did not think it worth their while to Invito enstum bv any vi'o' brilliant display. Tho paveu:cnts LegW

to be deeply smeared with that peculiarly nasty London slime which ran only here be produced in its glutinous and slippery perfection. Thus the aspect of things is depressing enough; hut it has been left to the ingennity of speculators to mako the streets absolutely maddening. The noises of London are not soothing, but they yield in horror to the sights. The art of advertising has become a positive nuisance, which it must be everybody's business to put down, for no one ever takes any steps in that direction. It is in vain that the Alhert Memorial, the New Museum in South Kensington,-with the stuffed boasts in stone on it, the Law Courts, and other triumphs of arcit'eeture decorate the streets. The sweet influences of these building* and monuments are completely dastroyod by leagues of blatant pictorial advertisements. A great many houses are being rebuilt at present, and openings have been out in dozens of streets. Each of the open spaces is walled in by a wooden hoarding, and each hoarding is covered with competing horrors. Flaming yellow strives with tawdry bine, a pecularly offensive red is mixed up with a crying green, and the colours yield in hideousness to the drawing of these noxious placards. When some German professor conies to write the history of the " Entwicklung of Advertisementskunst," he will probably discover that the Michael Angelo of the poster flourished at the end of the nineteenth century The modern advertisement is grandiose in its ugliness, and there is something colossal in the complet absence of taste and fancy which characterises its designee It is impossible that one mind, were it that of an advertising Gustavo Dore", could conceive all the horrors of all the hoardings. There must be, unknown to fame, a number of competing masters, and perhaps of hostile schools. The historian of the future may discern their differences, if he can ; to us they all seem equally successful, and quite in harmony as to their choice of method.' " Bigness, bigness, bigness," is the watchword of the advertising artist, and after bigness, he prefers crudity of colour and offeusivenoss of attitude. It is size, however, that is dearest to his heart. If he has read Mr. Bowring, he may say, in the words pilfered from Andrea del Sarto, What would one have ? In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance, Four hoardings in the New Jerusalem, For Smith, and Brown, and llobiuson, and me To cover! Hoardings should be infinite to state this vast ambition. Hoardings in London are all but practically infinite at tha present, there is no one to interfere, and wft are living probably in the very culminating period of the art of advertising. There are certain master-pieces in these gratuitous exhibitions which perhaps excite more rancour than others. There is the naked man with the pad, with his hair nicely brushed, and with the glow of restored health on his cheeks. It would he much if we could get rid of this naked man. The Lord Mayor's delicacy has of late been offended by certain photographs ot Zulus attired in their habit as they live. We do not know whether these Zulus (gentlemen and ladies) have given the photographers permission to sell their likenesses. We do not know whether these works of art are more or less modest than others which represent white women sprawling in hammocks. But we do know that, by reason of the smallness of the scale, the absence of colour, and the ingenious candour of the models, the Zulu potographs are likely to bo less repulsive than the naked man with the pad. The Lord Mayor should look at him, eveu at the expense of a magisterial blush. Next to this noxious advertisement, perhaps the most disgusting represents a gigantic grinning woman brushing her teeth with some scientific novelty in brushes. Headers of Swift will remember his description of the charms of the women in the land of the Brobdignagianf. The monstrous advertisoinout to which we refer is ugly enough, to have satisfied Swift as an illustration of his most unpleasant fancies. Another colossal portrait represents a Caholic priest grinning so as to display a collection of teeth about four inches long. There is something not less annoying in the calm conceit of a huge old Virginian farmer, who is smoking a pipe or cigarette—we forget which—with a maddening air of Republican virtue and agricultural repose. Very frequently ho is " killed" by a big square of smoke and flame colour through which a man is flying on to a trapeze in the distance. Next to him may oomo an advertisement which is perhaps the most rivelling in design and hidoous in effect of all the throng. A person in the stago dress of a Magioian is hounding about with an idiot grin on his lips and a serpent in his hundl The serpent he aims at the head of a deeipitatod being at his side. There is a cold-blooded stupidity in this hideous caricature which makes the life-size portrait of a gorilla gazing at himself in a hand-glass seem almost an agrecablo work of art. The thoatros are not to bu left behind by the tobacconists and soap dealers, and toothbrush vendors and pickle merchants, with their portraits of Lord Bonconsfield smirking over some Cypriau or Oriental sauce. To the theatre wo owe it that wo cannot escape the " sensational" scenes in that edifying drama " Drink." On ovory oinpty wall the drunken plumber, or whatavcr ho was, is falling nuadlong from the housetop, and the washer-women are tossing Mr. Kendo's second-hand soapsuds ill each other's faces. In another effort of the artist a villain in varnished boots is pushing a woman iu purple into a canal

look, while distressed females in all tlio hues of the rainbow lie about, in other placards, in the snow at the dwrs of ci niu. There is a bottle with a purple h>n.l preserved in spirits, which heco no; a Lttle tedious when everywhere thrust, upon the vision. The mutiny of the Afghaus, and the murder of our envoy, has given occasion for the production of| a murderous-looking Oriental person, half I ;of whose face is concealed by a curtain of green, over which his eyes glare with epileptic fury. We have missed lately the " Two Orphans," whose bulgy figures as they affectionately embraced on placards could excite little interest in the philanthropise bosom. Mr. Albery's po-1 i pular play is advertised in company with I two big flowers so dreadful in design and i size that the observer may cry with Mr. | Swinburne, " I shall never bo friends again with roses." A celebrated rilleshot is represented in a pair of buckskin trousersand big gold watch-chain, Btalking the buffalo in a forest primeval; and a daily paper advertises itself by a picture of a boy in a blue coat and a pink cap. There is, of course, a limit to the atrocities of advertisements, excepting the invention of the artists, and the money at the disposal of his patrons. One agent, if he chooses, might take up a hundred yards of hoarding and cover it with a figure a hundred yards long, like the unfortunate American inventor after befell into his own enrpet-making machine. As to the invention of the artists, it is of that weakly morbid sort which knows no aesthetic limits. It is precisely like the invention of the sensational novelist. One can never tell where that enierprisi g writer will draw the line, lie sets out in search of the bizarre and the disagreeable, like the borders of the hoarding, and he "is borne darkly, fearfully afar." If an artist in fiction does but stick at a blue hero, a web-footed heroine, and a supernatural stink, where is the artist of 'sensational" advertisements to stop? It is not his strength that gets beyond his control and carries him away; it is the weakness of his imagination thru maunders delirous'.y along among figures of monstrous women at their toilet, magical hair brushes, enchanted toothpicks, fairy starch, supernatural shirtings, and the like. ■ When he illustrates the marvel's of the realistic drama, he eannc t well, of course, go beyond the gentlemen who adapted soap suds and delirium tremens to the English stage. Hut he can and docs rival their efforts. In his hands painting has been degraded to an intrusive and vociferous art. Formerly music, aid perhaps architecture, were the only arts that would not leave 0119 alone. Music, especially street music, comes in search of its victim like a raging lion. They do not go to set k melody ; it thrusts itself upon him. The street art of the poster is as importunate. No one can avoid it; it cries as loud in Lad colour, bad drawing, and bad taste can cry. It defaces the streets, and in time must debase the natural sense of color, and destroy the natural pleasure in design. Probably it is nobody's busincs to interfere, but it seems rather hard that the most repulsive plays should be thrust on persons who avoid the realistic drama. A ttx on pictorial advertisements could bo profitable, and ought not to be unpopular.

into my ears the virtues of tea ami coffee, as opposed to other beverages. which, by reason at my nature and common sense, I prefer for my own individual consumption. Lust month, writes a correspondent of . Ijoudon L:md and Water, greatly to the sonow of the children, our cat, a half I Persian, suddenly disappeared, and her I accustomed place by the hearth " knew her no more." Seurch was. made high J and low, hut no trace of puss could be found. As time went on wo conjectured that eithor our favourite had heen stolen hy a sailor and taken for a voyage or ' killed, and so resigned ourselves to our ! loss. Great, then, was our surprise last I Friday on seeing puss quietly walk in, scarcely aide to stand, a veriest skeleton I covered with fur, and take her seat before the fire. I need not say she was fed and carresscd ad libitum. The next day we learned her adventures. It seems on the 24th February puss had strayed in to pay a neighbour a visit, and then finding a plunk of the flooring up —a man was altering the gas pipes—had retired into this hole to Beek mice. In due course the plank was nailed down, and the cat made a prisoner. Here, then, without food, drink, or air, puss remained until the liUth of March, while Iter incessant scratching made theoccupierj ofthch ouse fancy a rat must have a nest there and take up the flooring ;o lay p-.'ison. l She was taken oat considerably more, dead than alive, but kindly nursed atuij fed with little drops of beef tea, and the, next day found strength to crawl home.! After her twenty-six days' fast, I think 1 poor puss fully entitled to a most absolute! indulgence during the remainder of! Lent, j How nearly Daniol "Webster missed becoming one of the fraternity of ma-i gicians, the superior, perhaps, of Houdin,' LSlitz, or Heller, may be inferred from the dialogue that took place between i Daniel and an old neighbour named! Hanson, a few days before he graduated.! Webster particularly delighted in telling the story. " Well, Daniel, you are about to graduate. You liavo got through college ami have got college laruin'; and now what art you going lo do with it ?" I told him I had not decided on a profession. "Well," said he, "you are a good boy. Your father was a kind man to me, aud was always kind to the poor. 1 should like to do a good turn for him ami his. You've got through college, and people that go through college either; become .Ministers or doctors or lawycis. As for beiu' a minister, I would novel, thiuk of doiu' that. Doctorill' is a rnise-. rable profession; they live on other people's ailin's, are up ut nights, and have no peace. And as tor beiu' a lawyer, 1. would never propose that to anybody.)! Now," said he, "Daniel, I'll tell you what; • you aie a boy of parts ; you understand this book laruin', and you are bright. 1 knew a man who had boou larniu', down-' in Rye, where I lived wkeu I was a hoy. That man was a conjuror; he could telij by consultiu' his books and study, if ai