Sketcher. Among the Advertisers.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1899, 6 September 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

Sketcher. Among the Advertisers.

Can it over bo said that there is i nothing in the papers, when advertisers are always to the fore, providing matter for admiration, wonder, amusement, or speculation? One day a gentleman announces the loss of his heart between the stalls and boxes of the Haymatket Theatre ; the next, we have <l B. N." tolling " Dearest E."— " If yoa have the slightest inclination to become first-mate on board the screw-steamer, say so, and I will ask papa ; " and by-and-bye we are trying to gueas how the necessity arose for the following; "St. James's Theatre, Friday.— The Gentleman to whom a lady offered her hand, apologises for not being able to take it." Does any one v/ant two thousand pounds ? That nice little sum is to be obtained by merely introducing a certain New-Yorker to " the Pontesa ; " or if he or she be dead, to his or her heirs. " There is a doubt whether the cognomen was, or is, borne by 6 women, a man, or a child ; if by the last, it must have been born prior to the spring of 1873." If I the Pontess-seeker fails in his quest from not knowing exactly what it is that he wants, an ! advertiser in the Times is likely to have the same fortune from knowing, and letting those interested know, exactly what it is that he does not want. Needing the services of a married pair as coachman and cook, this outspoken gentleman jjtipnlates that the latter must not grumble at her mistress being her own housekeeper ; nor expect fat joints to be I ordered to swell her perquisites ; nor be imbued with the idea that because plenty may be around, she is bound to swell the tradesmen's bills by as much waste as possible. "N* oouple need apply that expect the work to be put out, are fond of change, or who dictate to their employers how much company may be kept." "When two of a trade fall out, they are apt to disclose secrets which it were wiser to keep to themselves. Disgusted by the success of a rival whose advertising boards bore the representation of a venerable man sitting crosslegged at his work, a San Francisco tailor advertised : " Don't be humbugged by hoaryheaded patriarchs who picture themselves cross-legged, and advertise pants made to order, three, four, and five dollars a pair. Do you know how it's done ? When you go into one of these stores that cover up their shopwindows with sample lengths of caasimere, marked ' Pants to order, three dollars fifty cents and four dollars ; ' after you have made a selection of the piece of cloth you want your pants made from, the pompous individual who is chief engineer of the big tailors shears, lays them softly on the smoothest part of his cutting-table, unrolls his tape-line, and proceeds to measure his victim all over the body. • The several measurements are all carefully entered in a book by the other humbug. The i customer is then told that his pants will be '' I finished in about twenty-four or thirty-six hours ; all depends upon how long it takes to , shrink the cloth. That's the end of the first act. i Part second. — The customer no sooner leaves the store than the merchant-tailor calls his i i shop-boy Jim, and sends him around to some wholesale jobber, and says : ' Get me a pair J of pants, pattern thirty-six,' which is the j shoddy imitation of the piece of eassimere that your pants are to be made of. 'Get thirty>four round the waist, and thirty-three in the leg.' They are pulled out of a pile of a hundred pairs just like them, made by Chinese cheap labor. All the carefully-made measurements and other claptrap are the bait on the hook. That's the way it's done. Traders sometimes give themselves away, as Americans say, innocently enough. A Paris grocer advertising Madeira at two francs, Old Madeira at three franos, and genuine Madeira at ten francs a bottle. A Bordeaux wine merohanti after stating the price per oask and bottle of "the most varied and superior growths of Bordeaux and Burgundy," con. dudes by announcing that he has also a stock

of natural wine to ba sold by private treaty. A sacrificing draper funnily tempts ladjes to rid him of three hundred baptiste robes by averring " they will not last over two days ; " and the propriet&r of somebody's Methuselah Pills can give them no higher praise than " Thousands have taken them, and are living still." When continental advertisers, bent upon lightening British purses, rashly adventure to attack Englishmen in their own tongue, the result 1b often disastrously comical. Th« proprietor of a •• mllk-«ur " establishment in Aix-la-Ohapellu, "foundefc before twentr years of orders from the magiotrat," boasts that his quality of " Suisse and his experiences causes him to deliver a milk pure and nutritive, obtained by sounds cow's and by a natural forage." One Parisian hosies informs his hoped-for patrons he possesses patent machinery for cutting " silths " — FrancoEnglish, we presume, for shirts. Another proclaims his resolve to sell his wares dirty cheap; and a dealer in butter, eggs, and cheeses, whose " produces " arrive every day •• from the farms of the establishment without intermedial," requests would-be customers to send orders by unpaid letters, as " the house does not recognise any traveller." A Hamburg firm notifies that their " universal binocle of field ifl also preferable for the use in the field, like in the theatre, and had to the last degree of perfection concerning to rigorouaness and pureness of the glass ; " while they are ready to supply all comers with " A Glass of Field for the Marine 52ctm objectiv opening in extra shout lac-leather etui and Btr&p, at sh 35«. 6d." This is a specimen of their 11 English young man's " powers of composition that would justify the enterprising opticians in imitating the Frenchman whose shop-window was graced with a placard, bearing the strange devioo, •' English spoken here a few." An Italian, speaking French well and a little English, with whom "wage is no object," advertising in> a London paper for an engagement as an indoor servant, puts down his height as "fifty-seven feet seven." Bat he manages his little English to better purpose than his countryman of Milan, who offers the bestest comforts to travellers, at his hotel, which he describes as " situated in the centre of an immense parck, with most magnificent views of the Alp chain, and an English church residing in the hotel " — the latter being furthermore provided with "baths of mineral waters in elegant private cabins and shower rooms, and two basins for bathin'; one for gentlemen, the oter for ladies ;" while it contains a hundred and fifty rooms, " all exposed to the south-west dining-room." Such an exposure might well cause the Milanese host's visitors to become " persons dependent upon the headache, or who have copious perspirations," whom a M. Lejeune invites "to come and visit without buying his new fabrication," with the chance oi meeting " the hat-makers, who endeavor by caoutchouc, gummed linen and others, to prevent hats from becoming dirt ; " eager to heat the inventor of the new fabrication demonstrate •' how much all those preparations are injurious, and excite, on contrary, to perspiration." Equally anxious to attract British custom is a doctor-dentist who, " after many years consecrated to serious experiences, has perfected the laying of artificial teeth by wholly new proceedings. He makes himself most difficulty works; it is the best gaaranty, and, thanks to his peculiar proceeding, his work joins to elegancy, solidity, and duration." Considering all things, our doctor-dentist's derangement of sentences is quite as commendable as that of the Belfast gentleman desirous of letting " the House at present occupied, and since erected by J. H~ — , Esq.; " who might pair off with the worthy responsible for— "To be sold, six cows— No. 1, a beautiful cow, calved eight days, with splendid calf at foot, a good milker'; No. 2, a cov,to calve in about fourteen days, and great promise. The other two cows are calved about twenty-one days, [and will speak for themselves." By a fortuitous occurrence of antagonistic lines, the Times one morning gave mothers the startlingjinformation that Jsseph Gillott's Steel Pens The Best Pood for Infants Is Prepared solely by Savory and Moore — a hint as likely to be taken as that of a public benefactor who announced in the Standard — " Incredible as it may eeem, 1 have ground to hope that half a glass of cold water, taken immediafcely2!aftert every meal, will be found to be the divinely appointed antidote for every kind of medicine." Another benevolent individual kindly tells us how to make coffee '. Placed in the parted straining-top let stand The moistened coffee, till the grain expand, Before the fire ; then boiling water pour, And quaff the nectar of the Indian shore. But he ia not quite so generous as he seems, since he 19 careful to inform us he is in possession of an equally excellent recipe for bringing oat the flavor of tea, which ho will forward for five shillings-worth of stamps. Urged by an equally uncontrollable desire to serve his fellow-creatures, a "magister in palmystery and conditionalist " ofiers, with the aid of guardian spirits, to obtain from any one a glimpse at the past and present ; and, on certain conditions, of the future ; but with less wisdom than a magister of palmystery should display ; he winds up with the prosaic notification, " Boots and shoes made to order." The wants of the majority of advertisers are intelligible enough ; but it needs some sp&ial knowledge to understand what may be meant by the good people who hanker for a portable mechanic, an efficient handwriter, a peerless feeder, a first-class ventilator on human hair-nets, a praotical cutter by measure on ladies' waists, a youth used to wriggling, and a boy to kick Gordon. Nor is the position required by a respectable young lady •as "figure in a large establishment," altogether clear to our mind ; and we may be doing injustice to the newspaper proprietor requiring " a sporting compositor," by inferring he "wants a man clever alike at " tips " and types. It does not say much for American theatrical "combinations," that the managers of one of them ostentatiously proclaim : "We pay our salaries regularly every Tuesday ; by so doing, we avoid lawsuits, are not oompelled to constantly change our people, and always carry our watches in our pockets." Neither would America apjpear to be quite such a land of liberty as it is supposed to be, since a gentleman advertises his want of a furnished room where he can have perfect independence ; while we have native testimony to our cousins' curiosity in a quiet young lady desiring a handsome furnished apartment " with non-inquisitive parties ;" and a married couple seeking three or four furnished rooms " for very light housekeeping, where people are not inquisitive." Can it be the same , pairjwho want a competent Protestant girl "to take charge pi a bottled baby ? " If so, their anxiety to abide with non-curioua folk is easily comprehended. Very whimsical desires find expression in the advertising columns of the day. A lady of companionable habits, wishing to meet with a lady or gentbman requiring a companion, would prefer to act as such to " one who, from circumstances, ia compelled to lead a retired life." A stylish and elegant widow, a good singer and musician, possessing energy, business knowledge, and means of her own, ready, "for the sake of & social home," to undertake the supervision of a widowers' establishment, thinks it well to add, goodness knows why, "a Badical preferred." Somebody in search of a middleaged man willing to travel, stipulates for & misanthrope with bitter experience of the wickedness of mankind ; displaying as pleaBant a taste as the proprietor of a wonderful ! discovery for relieving pain and curing disease without medicine, who wants a partner in the shape of a consumptive or asthmatioal gentleman. Your jocular man, lacking an outlet for his I wit, will often pay for the privilege of airing i his humor in public. Here are . a few examples. " Wanted, a good Liberal candi* | date for the Kilmarnock Buxgbs, Several. in-

ferior ones given in exchange." — " Wanted a Thin Man who has been used to collecting debts, to crawl through key-holes and find debtors who are never at home. Salary, nothing the first year ; to be doubled each year afterwards." — Wanted, Twelve-feet planks at the corners of all the streets in Melbourne, until the Corporatibn can fiad some 6th6r means of crossing the metropolitan creeks. The planks and the Corporation may be tied np to the lamp -posts in the dry weather." — "Wanted, & Cultured Gentleman used to milking goats ; a University man preferred." — " Correspondence ia solicited from Bearded Ladies, Circassians, and other female curiosities, who, in retarn for & trne heart and devoted husband would travel during the summer months, and allow him to take the money at the door."—" Wanted, a Coachman, the ugliest in the city ; he must not, however, have a moustache, not red hair, as those are very taking dualities in certain households at present. As he will not be required to take care of his employor'e daughter, and is simply engaged to see to the horses, he will only be allowed twenty dollars pet month." A great deal might be said about pictorial advertisements, if the impossibility ol reproducing them did not stand in the way. As it iB, we must content ourselves with showing how an advertisement ban be illustrated without the help at draughtsman or engraver. By arranging ordinary printers' types thus : — {@i@} { © I $ } | -r ~v- i An ingenious advertising agent presents the publio with portraits of the man who does not and tho man who does advertise, and says : " Try it, and see how you will look yourself."