Entituled A Looking-Glasse for Levellers,
Preached at St. Peters, Paules Wharf, on Sunday, Sept. 24th 1648,
by Paul Knell, Mr. of Arts. Another Tract called A Reflex
upon our Reformers, with a prayer for the Parliament
In an issue of the Mercurius Politicus, published by Marchmont
Nedham, who is described as ``perhaps both the ablest and the
readiest man that had yet tried his hand at a newspaper,'' there
appeared in January 1652 an advertisement, which has often
been erroneously cited as the first among newspaper
advertisements. It read as
follows:--
Irenodia Gratulatoria, a heroic poem, being a congratulatory
panegyrick for my Lord General's return, summing up his
successes in an exquisite manner. To be sold by John Holden,
in the New Exchange, London, Printed by Thomas Newcourt,
1652. The article ``On the Advertising System,'' published
in the Edinburgh Review for February 1843, contains the
fullest account of early English advertising that has ever been
given, and it has been very freely drawn upon by all writers
who have since discussed the subject. But it describes this
advertisement in the Mercurius Politicus as ``the very first,''
and the discovery of the two earlier instances above quoted was
due to the researches of a contributor to Notes and Queries.
In The Crosby Records, the commonplace-books of William
Blundell, there is an interesting comment, dated 1659, on
the lack of advertising facilities at that period--It would
be very expedient if each parish or village might have some
place, as the church or smithy, wherein to publish (by papers
posted up) the wants either of the buyer or the seller, as
such a field to be let, such a servant, or such a service,
to be had, &c. There was a book published in London weekly
about the year 1657 which was called (as I remember) The
Publick Advice. At gave information in very many of these
particulars. A year later the same diarist says--There is an
office near the Old Exchange in London called the office of Publick
Advice. From thence both printed and private information of
this useful nature are always to be had. But what they print
is no more than a leaf or less in a diurnal. I was in this
office. The diurnal consisted of sixteen pages quarto in
1689. In No. 62 of the London Gazette, published in June
1666, the first advertisement supplement was announced--An
Advertisement--Being daily prest to the Publication of Books,
Medicines, and other things not properly the business of a Paper
of Intelligence, This is to notifie, once for all, that we will
not charge the Gazette with Advertisements, unless they be
matter of State: but that a Paper of Advertisements will be
forthwith printed apart, & recommended to the Publick by another
hand. In No. 94 of the same journal, published in October
1666, there appeared a suggestion that sufferers from the Great
Fire should avail themselves of this means of publicity--Such
as have settled in new habitations since the late Fire, and
desire for the convenience of their correspondence to publish
the place of their present abode, or to give notice of Goods
lost or found may repair to the corner House in Bloomsbury
on the East Side of the Great Square, before the House of
the Right Honourable the Lord Treasurer, where there is care
taken for the Receipt and Publication of such Advertisements.
The earlier advertisements, with the exception of formal
notices, seem to have been concerned exclusively with either
books or quack remedies. The first trade advertisement,
which does not fall within either of these categories,
was curiously enough the first advertisement of a new
commodity, tea. The following advertisement appeared in
the Mercurius Politicus, No. 435, for September 1658--
That excellent and by all Physitians approved China Drink,
called by the Chineans Tcha, by other nations Tay,
alias Tee, is sold at the Sultaness Head, a cophee-house
in Sweetings Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London.
The history of slavery, of privateering and of many other
curious incidents and episodes of English history during the
17th and 18th centuries might be traced by examination of the
antiquated advertisements which writers upon such subjects
have already collected. In order that space may be found
for some consideration of the practical aspects of modern
advertising, the discussion of its gradual development must be
curtailed. Nor is it necessary to preface this consideration by
any laboured statement of the importance which advertising has
assumed. It is a matter of common knowledge that several
business houses are to be found in Great Britain, and a
larger number in the United States, who spend not less than
L. 50,000 a year in advertising, while one patent medicine
company, operating both in England and the United States, has
probably spent not less than L. 200,000 in Great Britain in one
year, and an English cocoa manufacturer is supposed to have
spent L. 150,000 in Great Britain. Some of the best works
of artists as distinguished as Sir John Millais, Sir H. von
Herkomer and Mr Stacy Marks have been scattered broadcast by
advertisers. The purchase of Sir John Millais' picture
``Bubbles'' for L. 2200 by the proprietors of a well-known
brand of soap is probably the most remarkable instance of the
expenditure in this direction which an advertiser may find
profitable. There are in London alone more than 350 advertising
agents, of whom upwards of a hundred are known as men in
a considerable way of business. The statements which from
time to time find currency in the newspapers with regard to
the total amount of money annually spent upon advertising
in Great Britain and in the United States are necessarily
no better than conjectures, but no detailed statistics are
required in order to demonstrate what every reader can plainly
see for himself, that advertising has definitely assumed
its position as a serious field of commercial enterprise.
Advertising, as practised at the beginning of the 20th century,
may be divided into three general classes:--1. Advertising in
periodical publications. 2. Advertising by posters, signboards
(other than those placed upon premises where the advertised
business is conducted), transparencies and similar devices.
3. Circulars, sent in quantities to specific classes of
persons to whom the advertiser specially desired to address
himself. It may be noted at the outset that advertising in
periodical publications exercises a reflex influence upon these
publications. The dally, weekly and monthly publications of
the day are accustomed to look to advertisements for so large
a part of their revenue that the purchaser of a periodical
publication receives much greater value for his money than he
could reasonably expect from the publisher if the aggregate
advertising receipts did not constitute a perpetual subsidy
to the publisher. It is not to be supposed, however, that
the receipts from the sale of a paper cover all its expenses
and that the advertising revenue is all clear profit. The
average newspaper reader would be amazed if he knew at how
great a cost the day's news is laid before him. A dignified
journal displays no inclination to cry from the housetops
the vastness of its expenditure, but from time to time an
accident enables the public to obtain information in this
connexion. The evidence taken by a recent Copyright Commission
disclosed that the expenditure of the leading English journal
upon foreign news alone amounted to more than L. 50,000 in the
course of one year, and that a year not characterized by any
great war to swell the ordinary volume of cable despatches.
In the case of daily papers sold at the minimum price, it is
not less obvious that the costliness of news service renders
advertising revenue indispensable, for although these less
important journals spend less money, the price at which they
are supplied to the news agents is very small in proportion
to the cost of their production. If, however, this thought
be pursued to its logical conclusion, the advertiser must
admit that he in turn receives, from those among newspaper
readers who purchase his wares, prices sufficiently high
to cover the cost of his advertising. So that the reader
is in the curious position of directly paying a certain
price for his newspaper, receiving a newspaper fairly worth
more than that price, while this price is supplemented by
the indirect incidence of a sort of tax upon many of the
commodities he consumes. On the other hand, a great part
of the advertisements in a daily newspaper have themselves
an interest and utility not less than that possessed by the
news. The man who desires to hire a house turns to the
classified lists which the newspaper publishes day after
day, and servants and employers find one another by the same
means. The theatrical announcements are so much a part
of the news that even if a journal were not paid for their
insertion they could not be altogether omitted without
inconvenience to the reader. In the main, however, it is
the advertiser who seeks the reader, not the reader who seeks
the advertiser, and the care with which advertisements are
prepared, and the certainty with which the success or failure
of a trader may be traced to his skill or want of skill as an
advertiser, show that the proper use of advertising is one
of the most indispensable branches of commercial training.
Poster and sign advertisements.
Before discussing in detail the methods of advertising
in periodical publications it may be well to complete,
for the use of the general reader, a brief survey of
the whole subject by examining the two other classes of
advertisement. The most enthusiastic partisan of advertising
will admit that posters and similar devices are very
generally regarded by the public as sources of annoyance.
A bold headline or a conspicuous illustration in a newspaper
advertisement may for a moment force itself upon the reader's
attention. In the French, and in some English newspapers,
where an advertisement is often given the form of an item of
news, the reader is distressed by the constant fear of being
hoodwinked. He begins to read an account of a street accident,
and finds at the end of the paragraph a puff of a panacea for
bruises. The best English and American journals have refused
to lend themselves to this sort of trickery, and in no one
of the best journals printed in the English language will
there be found an advertisement which is not so plainly
differentiated from news matter that the reader may avoid
it if he sees fit to do so. On the whole, then, newspaper
advertisements ask, but do not compel attention. The whole
theory of poster advertising is, on the other hand, one of
tyranny. The advertiser who pays for space upon a hoarding or
wall, although he may encourage a form of art, deliberately
violates the wayfarer's mind. A trade-mark or a catch-word
presents itself when eye and thought are occupied with other
subjects. Those who object to this class of advertisement
assert, with some show of reason, that an advertisement has
no more right to assault the eye in this fashion than to
storm the ear by an inordinate din; and a man who came up
behind another man in the street, placed his mouth close to
the other's ear, and bawled a recommendation of some brand
of soap or tobacco, would be regarded as an intolerable
disturber of public peace and comfort. Yet if the owner of
a house sees fit to paint advertisements upon his walls, his
exercise of the jealously guarded rights of private property
may not lightly be disturbed. For the most part, both law and
