TOLD ON LAMBTON QUAY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5193, 28 November 1895, Page 2

TOLD ON LAMBTON QUAY.

[Br The Ancient Mariner.] And thus spake on that ancient man, ' The bright-eyed marine/'."-Coleridge, Wellington, Tuesday, PICTOBIAf, PROFITS. The hoardings of the City been turned into picture galleiflflP varying each weektoillustratosceneT in the now pieces running at the Opera House. Bland Holt holds the boards, and Bland Holt has everything done in the most approved ■ style. The pictorial advertisements aro remarkably well got up, and give " a fair idea of the incidents in the drama. Bland Holt believes in advertising, and does it us completely ■ as possible, He brings around with , him some really good plays, and it is essential therefore that ho should proclaim the fact for the benefit of Colonists. Tho effect of this careful ; and profuse advertising is that the Opera House is nightly crowded with delighted audiencea,and Bland rakes . in the dollars and dimes. Bland Holt, it must be admitted, is much , more liberal with the newspapers in striking contrast with that traveller on the press, Smythe. P, Barnum was, in his day, the prince of show--1 men, and ho scaled into the position through being the prince of advertisers; 'his opinion is worth quoting^ ■ " A newspaper goes into the famWT ■ and is read by wife and children as well as tho head of tho house; hence hundreds and thousands of people ' may your advertisement, while you aro attending to your routine business. Many, perhaps, read .it ■ while you are asleep. The whole philosophy of life is: first "sow" then "reap." That is tho way the farmer does; ho plants his potatoes I and corn, and sows his grain, and . then goes about something else, and ' the time conies when he reaps. But ' he never reaps first and sows after- | wards. This principle applies to all kinds of business, and to nothing | more eminently than advertising," ; WHAT IS IT ? 1 It is the feature of the age, and no one can get on without advertis--1 ing. Lawyers, doctors, cobblers, 1 bakers, butchers, and all who depond ' upon tho public for support, must advertise in some form or another. _ Advertising is the hand-maid of our ■ higher civilisat:on,for a wider public is brought within reach, and a mtua must avail himself of the resouyK' | of civilisation to push his busines? i Full many a gem o( purest ray serene, | The unfathomcd oaves of ocean bear, ' Full many a bargain goea (or days unseen Because the people do not know it's there. It has to be done if we wish to succeed, and advertising of one kind or ] another is the feature of tho ago, . Go (orth in hasto, with bills and paste, , And proclaim to all orcation, That oilmen wise will advertiso ' In this and every nation, 3 HOW IT WORKS. Successful advertising depends wholly upon producing an impresI sion on the public mind, A Yankee i sums up the working of the ad. as a follows; i' The ad. when first looked at, is not seen at all, ' . And again on the floor it unnoticed will fall; ' The third time it assumes a familiar lace, ' And the fourth time is seen in its own proper place; -ggm Tho filth time it's looted at, the lojlT halt roads it; . The sixth time says' Pshaw I Why nobody nceisit.' Tho seventh tho ad. IB a source ot great pain; r And the eighth ho blurts out, "There's } that darned thing again I" • Tho ninth time ho wonders il there'B anything in it?' 1 The tenth time he reads it in less than a minuto. r At the eleventh he sayi he will ask 'cress the way, ut If ho Eaos it a twelfth, how such stuffcan m .p»y Thirteen times makes him think it may bo 6 a good thing; - While a fourteenth perusal tho longing 3 doth bring. , Fifteen times ho has read, and thinks ho will try it; His wife, on tho seventeenth entreats him to buy it, Tho seventeenth day 'tis the theme of , tho homo; i On tho eighteenth he's told that pay day , is come. Tho nineteenth comes round, it iB ordered and paid for, And this, gentlo reader, is what ads, are , made for. AUTOMATIC LIARS, The genius who invented the I mechanism which has given to nifdto kind the penny-in-the-slot machinoST 1 probably died in the "work'us" <P somo other unsavoury place, It is ' strangely enough tho fate of great men to finish upin miserable poverty. 1 It is unnecessary to record instances to omplmsisc this sentimeut, for a little reflection will call to tho mind ; of the reader well authenticated cases of great men and great women ending their days in a destitute condition. But all this has nothing to do with "Automatic Liars." Tho penny-in-the-slot weighing machines have become a feature of most of our public places, and in this City their principal habitations are tho Queen's Wharf and the Railway Station. _ Tho right to locate a machine in these public places is let by tho authorities, and those securing the privilege pay a rent or royalty. It must be admitted that these automatic woighing machines are a convenience to the public, and no one grudges tho penny which tho machines demand before telling their talo, It is, however, quito another matter when tho machino absorbs • the copper coin and settles the account with a There is such an officerasthelnspec!J® tor of Weights and Measures, and ' any unfortunate storekeeper or luckless lolly-vendoi',whoso weights may be defective, is liable to be pounced upon and dragged into Court by this short-weight detective, but the automatic _ penny-in-the-slot machines may lie like tombstones, and no one !is punished for the falsehood. The machines in Wellington have, to my own knowledge, been out of order, and yet the people were allowed to drop their pennies into the slot and bedefrauded. The Railway Department is now inviting applications for the right of running these machines at the Railway Stations. • and the Department would be doing bare justice by insisting that the machines bImII be kept in perfect order under penalty. In England when any such machine is out of order, a notice to that effeot is pasted up on tho dial, and repioved only when tho necessary repairs been made. The public require be protected from the penny-in r tlie-slqt machine as well as from the fraudulent short-weight ■ dealers. '"" " 1 1 ROCKER AT Ttip The second day's racing of the Wellington Jjace Club bad; it jyas bad for those who attended, because.Qf the rain. The thorough: ?oipg sports brave 4 the elements, o

they had "straight tips." Rocker, on amiable young fellow, found himself on the day of tho races with plenty of straight tips, find crooked pockets. Ho was dyiug to get out to the Hutt and fire oil the tips, hut. with one shilling and eight ponce in his pockets the task seemed hopeless. Rocker is a man of many devices, but any such insinuation yjjll draw from him tho romnrk, «P»Ayo, do youtakome forablooming rook ?" Bocker went to the races with his twenty pence and came home with forty-soven shillings and ft ducking. It was quite by chauce that he managed to work his way • out. First he went down to the railway station, aad stood on the platform in the supplicating attitude of a motherless foal, Some of his palsseeing him, invited himto the races, which was just whathewanted, for it gave him the excuse of borrowing half a quid. He struck tho first race, getting 5s on with an individual laying the totalisator odds. Ho tipped tho winner in four races, and with his winnings on tlio tote, was nbletorepay theamount he borrowed, and returned to town the richer by forty-seven shillings.

TURF TACTICS. There wore some incidents at the races, that struck Rockor as being rather comical. In tho first raco

ono of the " straight tip" gentry

put a pound on The Shrew, and the jteaoke won. Tho punter rushed to «Blaim his dividend and on feeling his pockot for tho totalisator ticket, discovered that someone else bad felt for tho ticket before ho did and secured tho div. also. When it comes to a duel between light lingers and thick-beads, the odds are in favor of tbe light lingers, and so the backer of The Shrew discovered to his cost. Another little unrehearsed scene that Rocker observed, was that of a man of many avoirdupois, nursing that part of his anatomy that children euphemistically term tho " tummy," On being questioned, the man admitted that he had been poisoned,—" I paid a shilling for a nobbier to a chap behind that cart, and begorra I'm cooked." Tho whisky was bad and the nobbierdrinker took no pains to conceal the fact, notwithstanding that "no license " was the rule of the Committee.

TWAIN TOLD TAIES. We are expecting a visit from tlio renowned and inimitable Mark Twain, and although the reputation man is sufficient to make us Wong to see him, still our interest in Mb visit is kept simmering with littlo anecdotes, which may be true or false. The latest yarn is as to M, Twnin'B opinion of the Cathedral City; according to Mark, the population of Ohi'istchurch is composed of two classes—tiioso who ride bicycles, and those who dodge them. Wo have yet to hear Twain's opinion of the population of the Empiio City, but if he were here now, and heard the complaints of our shopkeepers, I think ho would say there were two classes, those who paid their debts and those who dodged them, the latter predominating. But Mark Twain liaa nothing to fear, since he insists upon cash at the door.

BIKES AND BLOOM EfiS. An advanced womau from the South on a bike, in bloomers, has been "doing" this city. We can boast of several lady riders, but our

girls have not reached the bloomer stage, so that this southern girl was t®-raething of a curiosity. I happoned to meet her round by Oriental Bay the other day, and the pretext occurring, we entered into conversation. There was a delightful freedom about her, no mock modesty, and no side. The talk was naturally about bicycles and lady riders. She has ridden a good deal in the South, and invariably in bloomers, and has scarcely ever met with any disrespect, except on ono occasion, when a party of five or six women on wheels were riding from Dunedin to Oamaru. When passing a country township

some of the boys called out, "Go it spiudleshanks." "Of course," remarked tho lady, glancing in the direction of herknickered legs, "they did not refer to mo." And I, cocking my eyes on a pair of well developed calves, agreed that " spindleshanks" could havo had no reference to her. HARIETISG THE FLEECE.

The conversation among business mon jast now, is mostly as to the prospects of the coming wool sales. The New Zealand sales havo already Christchurch loading oft. I a chat this morning, with a

gentleman who is credited with being an expert in the wool business. I learned from him, that the Christchnreh sale was disappointing to sellers who expected to see higher prices, particularly for finer wools. Compared with coarse crossbreds, finer wools were fully a penny cheaper. Ihe fact is, Canterbury is not strong in coarse wool, and the lots offered at Christchurch were snapped up, the finer wools being neglected. This gives hope that tho sales to be held in Wellington on Friday week, will be a success, The feature of the local sales will be the large quantity of coarse wool that will be offered; and there being a demand for this elass, business should be good. Foreign buyers, particularly American, havo operated freely in Sydney, buying up largo quantities, and it is a question if tho foreigners have not seoured all thoy want; if so, it will materially affect New Zealand sates. All the selling brokers in Wellington have, I understand, good entries, and buyers will have a wide selection nffered them.

SETTIXO-UP WILLIS-STREET. The architect is bent on transforming Willis-street. When McGill's handsome buildings at the corner of

Willis-street and Boulcott-street, ' were erected, we fancied that we lmd reached the limit of improvement. But since lien, there have been many alterations, giving the street a tidier appearance. Yery shortly we shall have three useful brick buildings in Willis-street, which will greatly add to the business aspect of that thoroughfare. The bricklayers are hard at work on the now premises for the Evening Post; an old weather-beaten rookery having been demolished to make room for, the boildings, Mr W. F. Shortt,' the auctioneer, will soon let a contract for a building to occupy the site of the Victoria Restaurant, recently destroyed by fire. Messrs Wardell Bros., also intend erecting new

/ premises, and to serve their purJft)se, ti dilapidated and unsightly Wooden building must bo pulled down. is ono of our jnain business thoroughfares, and laud in this street is valuable; it is a pity, therefore, to see the ground encumbered with wretched : looking hpvels, and po one fill rept that tljg time hits arrived for their disappearance,

THE CIiU'O 01 THE HAUMER. building operations we fairly

brisk in the City; the increaSo in tho population and tho consequent demimd for houses, has kopt tho builders active. Tho plentiful supply of monoy and the eagerness of lenders to got tlioir money out, has also helped tho building trade. House property, too, is changing hands mqro freely, though the prices realised, are by no means of a fnncy character. Here again, cheap monoy I hns been of service, by tempting those with limited capital to seek the aid of the larger capitalist, and buy a house. The high rates, and over-stringent building by-laws, have prevented a good many from building, although nicely-situated houses command fat rentals.