case, the bank—which, in the present instance, is represented by the press—gains its commission. And, indeed, there are other resemblances between the game of advertising and that of the green baize tables. If you must gamble, the first rule is—Go in heavily, and play high. In that event, you may win a great “coup”; but if you go on with peddling stakes and a cautious system, you are absolutely certain to lose. So, if you must resort to puff advertising—advertise, everywhere and anywhere, to the utmost of your means, or your credit, and you will end in the House of Lords or—in the Gazette. But if you trifle with advertising, you will lose your money without a doubt. As the majority of mankind have not the courage to play a bold game in any pursuit, it is certain that, as a rule, advertisers make small ventures, and waste their substance foolishly.
However, it is no use preaching against the system. As long as sudden fortunes are made by successful advertisers, thousands will try their luck, just as they would put into lotteries if they were allowed to do so. The true philosopher will find food for curious speculation in observing the arts by which advertisers seek to secure custom, just as he would in any other exhibition of men’s weakness. Nobody, I am aware, can fathom the mysteries of the human heart, but that heart is even more unintelligible to me than I believed, if it is influenced by some of the devices laid out to attract it. For instance, some weeks ago I happened to be passing along the Strand, at a very early hour. At that season it was broad daylight by three o’clock, and the street was almost deserted. On my way I came across a man engaged in painting on every sixth stone an advertisement, addressed to persons in want of an iron safe. This process, as far as I could observe, he was repeating from Charing Cross to the foot of Ludgate Hill. Now, what conceivable motive could have induced the vendor of these safes to resort to such an unprofitable outlay? The class of persons, male and female, who frequent the Strand in the small hours of the night, are not likely to feel a keen anxiety on the subject of safes. Fast young men, newspaper compositors, and obscure “incognitas” have not much money to lose, and certainly none to keep. Before morning came, and wealthy men began to drive citywards, the scraping of the hundreds of thousand feet that pass along the great central thoroughfare of London, was certain to have rubbed off the announcement of the fire-and-robber-proof safe. Supposing, by any remote chance, that any belated banker, or a merchant driving to catch an early train, did catch sight of the short-lived announcement, is it conceivable that his mind was influenced by it? To own a safe you must be a man of wealth, gravity, and respectability; and if I were such, I should as soon think of buying a depositary of my treasures because I had seen the maker’s name dabbled on the stone pavement, as I should think of opening an account at a particular bank or taking a pew in church from similar motives. If—which is most improbable—I gave two thoughts to the matter, I should make a mental note not to buy my safe of a manufacturer who so little appreciated the gravity of his important functions.
Then there used, last year, to be another advertisement which filled my unlearned mind with wonder. We must all remember the remarkable assertion that for months appeared on every blank wall in London:—“I have seen the Peep o’ Day, and want to see it again.” Now, what could have been the mental process by which this advertisement drew crowds to the Lyceum Theatre? Is it possible that there are persons to whom any formula is welcome, and who are glad to act in accordance with any advice that anybody is kind enough to give them? The bucolic intellect is not of a rapid order; but still even the most ponderous of agricultural visitors to the metropolis would hardly have been induced to go and see the “Peep o’ Day” on account of this solicitation.
Then there is another form of advertisement which is also a wonder to me, and that is the Insurance class. It is—at least so I should think—rather a serious matter, insuring your life. The act of doing so implies a certain amount of prudence, self-denial, and forethought. And yet people are supposed to be stimulated to such a proceeding by finding inserted between the leaves of a shilling novel a glowing pictorial prospectus of the Utopia and Arcadia Fire and Life Insurance Company, where half the premiums are returned with interest, in the shape of profits.
I am sorry, too, to see that this puffing system is gradually coming into vogue with regard to literary advertisements. I am prejudiced enough not to like sensation advertising, as applied to books. For instance, every now and then I take up my daily paper, and see that the proprietors of a semi-religious publication have filled a whole page with a string of selections from their own periodical. I feel inclined to reverse the old dictum about keeping silence from bad words, and wish that “Good Words” would keep silence themselves. I—speaking, I believe, purely as one of the reading public—am not a bit more inclined to buy a copy of this publication, because I see its proprietors have gone to the expense of purchasing a whole page of the “Times” for their advertisements. On the contrary, my feeling is that a periodical which courts such pushing is not likely to have great merits of its own. Knowing absolutely nothing of the publication in question, I may very possibly be wrong in my judgment, but I only state that this is the impression left on my mind, and, I should have thought, on the minds of ninety-nine persons out of every hundred who caught sight of this monster advertisement.
It is curious to observe how the advertisers of different nations avail themselves of the press. In France, where the “réclame” had its birth, the sensation system is still kept within bounds. The backs of the meagre four-page Parisian papers are constantly taken up with an advertisement in gigantic black letters of the Baths of Teufels-Bad, or the Pillules dorées of M. le docteur Rothomago. But still, even in these advertisements, there is a sort of propriety. The rows of letters are arranged in parallel lines, and there is nothing absolutely monstrous about their arrangement. In America,