connexion with the broader aspects of his calling, it may be
suggested that a new channel of trade demands very serious
attention. What is called in England ``postal trade,''
and in America ``mail order business,'' is growing very
rapidly. Small dealers in both countries have complained
very bitterly of the competition they suffer from the general
dealers and from stores made up of departments which, under
one roof, offer to the consumer every imaginable sort of
merchandise. This general trading, which, on the one hand,
seriously threatens the small trader, and on the other hand
offers greater possibilities of profit to the proportionately
small number of persons who can undertake business on so
large a scale, becomes infinitely more formidable when the
general dealer endeavours not only to attract the trade of a
town, but to make his place of business a centre from which
he distributes by post his goods to remote parts of the
country. In America, where the weight of parcels carried by
post is limited to 4 lb., and where the private carrying companies
are forced to charge a very much higher rate for carriage
from New York to California than for shorter distances, the
centralization of trade is necessarily limited; but it is no
secret that, at the present moment, persons residing in those
parts of the United Kingdom most remote from London habitually
avail themselves of the English parcel post, which carries
packages up to 11 lb. in order to procure a great part of their
household supplies direct from general dealers in London.
A trading company, which conducts its operations upon such a
scale as this, can afford to spend an almost unlimited sum in
advertising throughout the United Kingdom, and even the trader
who offers only one specific class of merchandise is beginning
to recognize the possibility of appealing to the whole country.
Legal regulation.
The following is a brief summary of the laws and regulations
dealing with advertisements in public places in certain
of the countries of Continental Europe and in the United
States of America, the chief authority for which is an
official return issued by the British Home Office in 1903.
France.--The permission of the owner is alone required
for the placing of advertisements on private buildings; but
buildings, walls, &c., belonging to the government or local
authorities are reserved exclusively for official notices,
&c.; these alone can be printed on white paper, all others
must be on coloured paper. Municipal authorities control the
size, construction, &c., of hoardings used for advertising
purposes, and the police have full powers over the exhibition
of indecent or other objectionable advertisements. The
Societe pour la protection des paysages, founded in 1901,
has for one of its objects the prevention of advertisements
which disfigure the scenery or are otherwise objectionable.
Germany.--By sec. 43 of the Imperial Commercial Ordinance
permission to post any trade advertisement in a public
street, square, &c., must be first obtained from the local
police. The police also control (by sec. 55 of the Imperial
Press Law 1874) advertisements which are not of a trade
character, but this regulation does not affect the right of
the federal legislatures to make regulations in regard to them
(sec. 30). It would be impossible to give in any detail the
police regulations as to advertisements which exist, e.g. in
Prussia, but the following rules in force in Berlin may be
given:--Public advertisements in public streets and places
may be posted only on the appliances, such as pillar posts,
&c., provided for the purpose. Owners of property may post
advertisements on their own property but only such as concern
their own interests. Advertisements on public conveyances are
forbidden. In 1902 a Prussian law was passed authorizing
the police to forbid all advertisement hoardings, &c., which
would disfigure particularly beautiful landscapes in rural
districts. The Hesse-Darmstadt Act of 1902 prohibits the
placing of any advertisements, posters, &c., on a monument
officially protected under the act, if it would be likely to
injure the appearance of the monument. As instances of the
numerous local provisions against the abuse of advertising may
be cited provisions against the abuse of advertising may be cited
those of Augsburg and Lubeck, by Which any advertisement that
would injure the Stadtbild or appearance of the town may
be prohibited and removed by the local authority (see G.
Baldwin Brown, The Care of Ancient Monuments, 1905).
Full powers exist under the Imperial Criminal Code for the
suppression of indecent or objectionable advertisements.
Austria.---Permission of the police is required for the
exhibition of printed notices in public places other than
such as are of purely local or industrial interest, such
as notices of entertainment, leases, sales, &c., or theatre
programmes, and these can only be shown in places approved
by the local authorities (Press Law 1862). The press-police
act as advertisement censors and determine whether an
advertisement can be allowed or not. In Hungary there
are no general laws or regulations, but the municipalities
have power to issue ordinances dealing with the question.
Italy.--All control rests with the municipal and communal
authorities, who may decide on the places where advertisements
may or may not be posted, and can prevent hoardings being
placed on or near ancient monuments or public buildings.
Switzerland.---The Federal Government has no authority to deal
with this question; certain of the cantons have regulations,
e.g. Lucerne prohibits the public advertising of inferior goods
by means of a false description, Basel-Stadt gives the police
the power of censoring all advertisements. Many of the communal
authorities throughout Switzerland have special restrictions and
regulations. In Zurich the police choose the advertising
stations, in Berne the municipality possesses a monopoly of
the right of erecting advertisements. The Society known as
the Ligue pour la conservation de la Suisse pittoresque or
Schweitzerischer Heimatschutz has for one of its objects
the preservation of scenery from disfiguring advertisements.
United States.---There is no federal legislation on the
subject, the matter being one for regulation by the states,
which in most cases have left it to the various municipalities
and other local authorities. With regard to indecent
and objectionable advertisements some states have special
legislation on the matter, others are content with the ordinary
criminal laws or police powers or with the law of nuisance
or of trespass. Thus control can be exercised over such
advertisements as are dangerous to public safety, health or
morals. The state of New York prohibits advertisements of
lotteries. It would be impossible to give in detail the
different laws and regulations passed in the various states or by
municipalities. The following are some of the more striking
measures adopted in certain of the states. In Massachusetts
no advertising signs or devices are allowed on the public
highways. Power has been granted to city and town authorities
to regulate advertisements in, near or visible from public
parks. In the District of Columbia no advertisement is
allowed which obstructs a highway, and all distribution of
handbills, circulars, &c., in public streets, parks, &c., is
prohibited. This prohibition against what are generally
known as ``dodgers'' is very general in the local regulations
throughout the states. In Illinois, city councils are empowered
on the incorporation of the city to regulate and prevent
the use of streets, sidewalks and public grounds for signs,
handbills and advertisements, &c., and also the exhibition
of banners, placards, in the streets or sidewalks. Chicago
has a body of most stringent rules, but they apparently
have been found impossible to enforce; thus no advertisement
board more than 12 ft. square within 400 ft. of a public
park or boulevard, no advertisements other than small ones
relating to the business carried on in the premises where
the advertisement is posted, or of sales, &c., are allowed in
streets where three-quarters of the houses are ``residences''
only. Prohibition is also extended to the advertisements
of those professing to cure diseases or giving notice of
the sale of medicines. In Boston there are regulations
prohibiting projecting or overhanging signs in the streets,
and special rules as to the height at which street signs and
advertisements must be placed. The distribution of ``dodgers''
in the streets is prohibited. Advertisements for places
of amusement must be approved by the committee on licences.
Taxation.
France, Belgium, Italy and certain of the cantons in
Switzerland impose a tax on advertisements, as do certain of
the United States of America, where the form is usually that
of a licence duty on billposters or advertising agencies.
In many cases in the United States this is imposed by the
municipalities. In every case both in Europe and America
advertisements in newspapers are not subject to any tax.
With regard to the literature of advertising, in addition
to the historical article in the Edinburgh Review for
February 1843, already mentioned, and that in the Quarterly
Review for June 1855, the Society for Checking the Abuses
of Public Advertising issue a journal, A Beautiful World.
The Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation (N.S.
xvi. 1906) contains an article by W.J.B. Byles on Foreign
Law and the Control of Advertisements in Public Places. The
advertisers' handbooks, issued by the leading advertising
agents, will also be found to contain practical information
of great use to the advertiser. (H. R. H.*; C. WE.)
ADVICE (Fr. avis, from Lat. ad, to, and visum,
viewed), counsel given after consideration, or information
from a distance giving particulars of something prospective
( e.g. ``advice'' of an imminent battle, or of a cargo
due). In commerce it is a common word for a formal notice
from one person concerned in a transaction to another.
ADVOCATE (Lat. advocatus, from advocare, to summon,
especially in law to call in the aid of a counsel or witness,
and so generally to summon to one's assistance), a lawyer
authorized to plead the causes of litigants in courts of
law. The word is used technically in Scotland (see ADVOCATES,
FACULTY OF) in a sense virtually equivalent to the English
term barrister, and a derivative from the same Latin source
is so used in most of the countries of Europe where the civil
law is in force. The word advocatus is not often used among
the earlier jurists, and appears not to have had a strict
meaning. It is not always associated with legal proceedings,
and might apparently be applied to a supporter or coadjutor
in the pursuit of any desired object. When it came to be
applied with a more specific limitation to legal services,
the position of the advocatus was still uncertain. It
was different from, and evidently inferior to, that of the
juris-consultus, who gave his opinion and advice in questions
of law, and may be identified with the consulting counsel
of the present day. Nor is the merely professional advocate
to be confounded with the more distinguished orator, or
patronus, who came forward in the guise of the disinterested
vindicator of justice. This distinction, however, appears
to have arisen in later times, when the profession became
mercenary. By the lex Cineia, passed about two centuries
B.C., and subsequently renewed, the acceptance of
