_INTRODUCTORY--STREET AND GENERAL ADVERTISING._
It seems indeed singular that we are obliged to regard advertising as a
comparatively modern institution; for, as will be shown in the progress
of this work, the first advertisement which can be depended upon as
being what it appears to be was, so far as can be discovered, published
not much more than two hundred years ago. But though we cannot find any
instances of business notices appearing in papers before the middle of
the seventeenth century, mainly because there were not, so far as our
knowledge goes, papers in which to advertise, there is little doubt that
the desire among tradesmen and merchants to make good their wares has
had an existence almost as long as the customs of buying and selling,
and it is but natural to suppose that advertisements in some shape or
form have existed not only from time immemorial, but almost for all
time. Signs over shops and stalls seem naturally to have been the first
efforts in the direction of advertisements, and they go back to the
remotest portions of the world’s history. Public notices also were
posted about in the first days of the children of Israel, the utterances
of the kings and prophets being inscribed on parchments and exposed in
the high places of the cities. It was also customary, early in the
Christian era, for a scroll to be exhibited when any of the Passion or
other sacred plays were about to be performed, and comparatively
recently we have received positive intelligence that in Pompeii and
similar places advertising by means of signs and inscriptions was quite
common. The “History of Signboards,” a very exhaustive and valuable
book, quotes Aristotle, and refers to Lucian, Aristophanes, and others,
in proof of the fact that signboard advertisements were used in ancient
Greece, but the information is extremely vague. Of the Romans, however,
more is known. Some streets were with them known by means of signs. The
book referred to tells us that the bush, the Romans’ tavern sign, gave
rise to the proverb, “Vino vendibili suspensa hedera non opus est;” and
hence we derive our own sign of the bush, and our proverb, “Good wine
needs no bush.” An _ansa_ or handle of a pitcher was then the sign of a
pothouse, and hence establishments of this kind were afterwards
denominated _ansæ_.
A correspondent writing to _Notes and Queries_, in answer to a question
in reference to early advertising, says that the mode adopted by the
Hebrews appears to have been chiefly by word of mouth, not by writing.
Hence the Hebrew word _kara_ signifies to cry aloud, and to announce or
make known publicly (κηρύσσειν); and the announcement or proclamation,
as a matter of course, was usually made in the streets and chief places
of concourse. The matters thus proclaimed were chiefly of a sacred kind,
as might be expected under a theocracy; and we have no evidence that
secular affairs were made the subject of similar announcements. In one
instance, indeed (Isa. xiii. 3), _kara_ has been supposed to signify the
calling out of troops; but this may be doubted. The Greeks came a step
nearer to our idea of advertising, for they made their public
announcements by writing as well as orally. For announcement by word of
mouth they had their κήρυξ, who, with various offices besides, combined
that of public crier. His duties as crier appear to have been
restricted, with few exceptions, to state announcements and to great
occasions. He gave notice, however, of sales. For the publication of
their laws the Greeks employed various kinds of tablets, πίνακες,
ἄξονες, κύρβεις. On these the laws were written, to be displayed for
public inspection. The Romans largely advertised private as well as
public matters, and by writing as well as by word of mouth. They had
their _præcones_, or criers, who not only had their public duties, but
announced the times, places, and conditions of sales, and cried things
lost. Hawkers cried their own goods. Thus Cicero speaks of one who cried
figs, _Cauneas clamitabat_ (De Divin. ii. 40). But the Romans also
advertised, in a stricter sense of the term, by writing. The bills were
called _libelli_, and were used for advertising sales of estates, for
absconded debtors, and for things lost or found. The advertisements were
often written on tablets (_tabellæ_), which were affixed to pillars
(_pilæ columnæ_). On the walls of Pompeii have been discovered various
advertisements. There will be a dedication or formal opening of certain
baths. The company attending are promised slaughter of wild beasts,
athletic games, perfumed sprinkling, and awnings to keep off the sun
(_venatia_, _athletæ_, _sparsiones_, _vela_).[4] One other mode of
public announcement employed by the Romans should be mentioned, and that
was by signs suspended or painted on the wall. Thus a suspended shield
served as the sign of a tavern (Quintil. vi. 3), and nuisances were
prohibited by the painting of two sacred serpents. Among the French,
advertising appears to have become very general towards the close of the
sixteenth century. In particular, placards attacking private character
had, in consequence of the religious wars, become so numerous and
outrageous, that subsequently, in 1652, the Government found it
necessary to interpose for their repression.[5]
Speaking of the signs of Herculaneum and Pompeii, the “History of
Signboards” says that a few were painted, but, as a rule, they appear to
have been made of stone, or terra cotta relievo, and set into the
pilasters at the sides of the open shop fronts. Thus there have been
found a goat, the sign of a dairy, and a mule driving a mill, the sign
of a baker. At the door of a school was the highly suggestive and not
particularly pleasant sign to pupils of a boy being birched. Like to our
own signs of two brewers carrying a tun slung on a pole, a Pompeian
publican had two slaves represented above his door carrying an amphora,
and another dispenser of drink had a painting of Bacchus pressing a
bunch of grapes. At a perfumer’s shop in the street of Mercury were
represented various items of that profession, notably four men carrying
a box with vases of perfume, and men laying out and perfuming a corpse.
There was also a sign of the Two Gladiators, under which, in the usual
Pompeian cacography, was the following:--“Abiam venerem Pompeiianama
iradam qui hoc læserit.” Besides these were the signs of the Anchor, the
Ship (possibly a ship-chandler’s), a sort of a Cross, the Chequers, the
Phallus on a baker’s shop, with the words, “Hic habitat felicitas;”
whilst in Herculaneum there was a very cleverly painted Amorino, or
Cupid, carrying a pair of lady’s shoes, one on his head and the other in
his hand. It is also probable that the various artificers of Rome used
their tools as signs over their workshops and residences, as it is found
that they were sculptured on their tombs in the catacombs. On the
tombstone of Diogenes, the grave-digger, there is a pickaxe and a lamp;
Banto and Maxima have the tools of carpenters, a saw, an adze, and a
chisel; Veneria, a tire-woman, has a mirror and a comb. There are others
with wool-combers’ implements; a physician has a cupping-glass; a
poulterer, a case of fowls; a surveyor, a measuring rule; a baker, a
bushel measure, a millstone, and some ears of corn; and other signs are
numerous on the graves of the departed. Even the modern custom of
punning on the name, so common on signboards, finds its precedent on
these stones. The grave of Dracontius was embellished with a dragon,
that of Onager with a wild ass, and that of Umbricius with a shady tree.
Leo’s grave received a lion; Doleus, father and son, two casks;
Herbacia, two baskets of herbs; and Porcula, a pig. It requires,
therefore, but the least possible imagination to see that all these
symbols and advertisements were by no means confined to the use of the
dead, but were extensively used in the interests of the living.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _WALL INSCRIPTIONS IN POMPEII.--Signor Raphael Garrucci,
to whom we are indebted for these Plates, in commenting upon Group 5
(LX., IIII., IIII., VII., ZV., Ε., ΓΑ., III., S., CIA.), says, “I will
now give my opinion upon this strange combination of Greek and Roman
signs--it seems to me a custom introduced even at Rome since the epoch
of Augustus, to mingle the Greek numeral elements with Latin signs.”_]
Street advertising, in its most original form among us, was therefore
without doubt derived from the Romans; and this system gradually grew,
until, in the Middle Ages, there was hardly a house of business without
its distinctive sign or advertisement; which was the more necessary, as
in those days numbers to houses were unknown. “In the Middle Ages the
houses of the nobility, both in town and country, when the family was
absent, were used as hostelries for travellers. The family arms always
hung in front of the house, and the most conspicuous object in those
arms gave a name to the establishment amongst travellers, who,
unacquainted with the mysteries of heraldry, called a lion gules or
azure by the vernacular name of the Red or Blue Lion. Such coats of arms
gradually became a very popular intimation that there was--
Good entertainment for all that passes--
Horses, mares, men, and asses.
And innkeepers began to adopt them, hanging out red lions and green
dragons as the best way to acquaint the public that they offered food
and shelter. Still, as long as civilisation was only at a low ebb, the
so-called open houses few, and competition trifling, signs were of but
little use. A few objects, typical of the trade carried on, would
suffice; a knife for the cutler, a stocking for the hosier, a hand for
the glover, a pair of scissors for the tailor, a bunch of grapes for the
vintner, fully answered public requirements. But as luxury increased,
and the number of houses or shops dealing in the same article
multiplied, something more was wanted. Particular trades continued to be
confined to particular streets; the desideratum then was to give to each
shop a name or token by which it might be mentioned in conversation, so
that it could be recommended and customers sent to it. Reading was still
a scarce acquirement, consequently to write up the owner’s name would
have been of little use. Those that could advertised their name by a
rebus--thus, a hare and a bottle stood for Harebottle, and two cocks for
Cox. Others, whose names could represent, adopted pictorial objects; and
as the quantity of these augmented, new subjects were continually
required. The animal kingdom was ransacked, from the mighty elephant to
the humble bee, from the eagle to the sparrow; the vegetable kingdom,
from the palm-tree and cedar to the marigold and daisy; everything on
the earth and in the firmament above it was put under contribution.
Portraits of the great men of all ages, and views of towns, both painted
with a great deal more of fancy than of truth; articles of dress,
implements of trades, domestic utensils, things visible and invisible,
‘Ea quæ sunt tanquam ea quæ non sunt,’ everything was attempted in order
to attract attention and to obtain publicity. Finally, as all signs in a
town were painted by the same small number of individuals, whose talents
and imagination were limited, it followed that the same subjects were
often repeated, introducing only a change in the colour for a
difference.”[6]
From the foregoing can be traced the gradual growth of street
advertising until it has reached its present extensive pitch; and though
the process may be characterised as slow, no one who looks around at the
well-covered hoardings and the be-plastered signs on detached and
prominent houses can doubt that it is sure. Proclamations, and suchlike
official announcements, were probably the first specimens of street
advertising, as we now understand the term; but it was not until
printing became general, and until the people became conversant with the
mysteries of reading and writing, that posters and handbills were to any
extent used. Mention is made in 1679 of a tradesman named Jonathan
Holder, haberdasher, of the city of London, who gave to every purchaser
to the extent of a guinea a printed list of the articles kept in stock
by him, with the prices affixed. The paper in which this item of news
was recorded seems to have regarded Mr Holder’s practice as a dangerous
innovation, and remarks that it would be quite destructive to trade if
shopkeepers lavished so much of their capital in printing useless bills.
This utterance now seems ridiculous; but in the course of another two
centuries many orthodox opinions of the present day will receive as
complete a downfall as that just recorded.
Within the recollections of men who are still young street advertising
has considerably changed. Twenty years ago the billsticker was a
nuisance of the most intolerable kind, and though we can hardly now
consider him a blessing, his habits have changed very much for the
better. Never heeding the constant announcement to him to beware, the
billsticker cared nothing for the privacy of dead walls, or, for the
matter of that, of dwelling-houses and street doors; and though he was
hardly ever himself to be seen, his disfigurative work was a prominent
feature of the metropolis. It was also considered by him a point of
honour--if the term may be used in connection with billstickers--to
paste over the work of a rival; and so the hoardings used to present the
most heterogeneous possible appearance, and though bills were plentiful,
their intelligibility was of a very limited description. Sunday morning
early used to be a busy time with the wandering billsticker. Provided
with a light cart and an assistant, he would make a raid on a whole
district, sticking his notices and disappearing with marvellous
rapidity. And how he would chuckle as he drove away, more especially if,
in addition to disfiguring a private wall, he had succeeded in covering
over the handiwork of a rival! For this reason the artful billsticker
used to select a time when it was still early enough to evade detection,
and yet late enough to deface the work of those who had gone before him.
Billsticking was thus an art attended with some difficulties; and it was
not until the advent of contractors, like Willing, Partington, and
others, that any positive publicity could be depended upon in connection
with posting.
Yet, in the days of which we have just been speaking, the man of paste
considered himself a very important personage; and it is not so very
long since one individual published himself under the style and title of
“Champion Billposter,” and as such defied all comers. It was for some
time doubtful whether his claims depended upon his ability to beat and
thrash all rivals at fisticuffs, whether he was able to stick more bills
in a given time than any other man, or whether he had a larger and more
important connection than usually fell to the poster’s lot; in fact, the
question has never been settled, for exception having been taken to his
assumption of the title of champion from any point of view, and
reference having been made to the editors of sporting papers, the
ambitious one gracefully withdrew his pretensions, and the matter
subsided. A generation ago one of the most popular songs of the day
commenced something like this--
“I’m Sammy Slap the billsticker, and you must all agree, sirs,
I sticks to business like a trump while business sticks to me, sirs.
There’s some folks calls me plasterer, but they deserve a banging,
Cause yer see, genteelly speaking, that my trade is paperhanging.
With my paste, paste, paste!
All the world is puffing,
So I’ll paste, paste, paste!”
[Illustration: AN OLD BILL-STATION.]
The advent of advertisement contractors, who purchased the right,
exclusive and absolute, to stick bills on a hoarding, considerably
narrowed the avocations of what might almost have been called the
predatory billsticker. For a long time the fight was fierce and often;
as soon as an “advertisement station” had been finished off, its bills
and announcements being all regulated with mathematical precision, a
cloud of skirmishers, armed to the teeth with bills, pots, and brushes,
would convert, in a few minutes, the orderly arrangements of the
contractor to a perfect chaos. But time, which rights all things, aided
in the present instance by a few magisterial decisions, and by an
unlooked-for and unaccountable alacrity on the part of the police, set
these matters straight; and now it is hard to find an enclosure in
London the hoarding of which is not notified as being the “advertisement
station” of some contractor or other who would blush to be called
billsticker. In the suburbs the flying brigade is still to be found hard
at work, but daily its campaigning ground becomes more limited, and
gradually these Bashi-Bazouks of billsticking are becoming absorbed into
the regular ranks of the agents’ standing corps.
Placard advertising, of an orderly, and even ornamental, character, has
assumed extensive proportions at most of the metropolitan railway
stations, the agents to whom we have just referred having extended their
operations in the direction of blank spaces on the walls, which they
sublet to the general advertising public. Often firms which advertise on
an extensive scale themselves contract with the railway companies, and
not a few have extended their announcements from the stations to the
sides of the line, little enamelled plates being used for this purpose.
Any one having a vacant space at the side of his house, or a blank wall
to the same, may, provided he live in anything like a business
thoroughfare, and that the vantage place is free from obstruction, do
advantageous business with an advertisement contractor; and, as matters
are progressing, we may some day expect to see not only the private
walls of the houses in Belgrave Square and suchlike fashionable
localities well papered, but the outsides and insides of our public
buildings utilised as well by the hand of the advertiser. One thing is
certain, no one could say that many of the latter would be spoiled, no
matter what the innovation to which they were subjected.
The most recent novelty in advertising has been the introduction of a
cabinet, surmounted by a clock face, into public-house bars and luncheon
rooms. These cabinets are divided into spaces of say a superficial foot
each, which are to be let off at a set price. So far as we have yet
seen, these squares have been filled for the most part with the
promoters’ advertisements only; and it is admitted by all who know most
about advertising that the very worst sign one can have as to the
success of a medium is that of an advertisement emanating from the
promoters or proprietors of anything in which such advertisement
appears. Why this should be we are not prepared to say. We are more able
to show why it should not be; for no man, advertisement contractor or
otherwise, should, under fair commercial conditions, ask another to do
what he would not do himself. So we are satisfied to rest content with
the knowledge that what we have stated is fact, however incongruous it
may seem, which any one can endorse by applying himself to the ethics of
advertising. Certainly, in the instance quoted, the matter looks very
suggestive; perhaps it depends on the paradox, that he who is most
anxious that others should advertise is least inclined to do so himself.
Not long ago the promoters of a patent umbrella, which seems to have
gone the mysterious way of all umbrellas, patent or otherwise, and to
have disappeared, availed themselves of a great boat-race to attract
public attention to their wares. Skiffs fitted with sails, on each of
which were painted the patent parapluie, and a recommendation to buy
it, dotted the river, and continually evaded the efforts of the
Conservancy Police, who were endeavouring to marshal all the small craft
together, so as to leave a clear course for the competitors. Every time
one of these advertising boats broke out into mid-stream, carrying its
eternal umbrella between the dense lines of spectators, the
advertisement was extremely valuable, for straying boats of any kind are
on such occasions very noticeable, and these were of course much more
so. Still it would seem from the sequel that this bold innovation had
been better applied to something more likely to hit the public taste;
for whether it was that people, knowing how fleeting a joy is a good
umbrella, were determined not to put temptation in the way of their
friends, or whether the experiment absorbed all the spare capital of the
inventor and patentees, we know not; but this we do know, that since the
time of which we speak little or nothing has been heard of the novel
“gingham.”
Another innovation in the way of advertisements was that, common a few
years back, of stencilling the flagstones. At first this system assumed
very small proportions, a parallelogram, looking like an envelope with a
black border that had been dropped, and containing the address of the
advertiser, being the object of the artist entrusted with the mission.
Gradually, however, the inscriptions grew, until they became a perfect
nuisance, and were put down--if the term applies to anything on such a
low level--by the intervention of the police and the magistrates. The
undertakers were the greatest sinners in this respect, the invitations
to be buried being most numerous and varied. These “black workers” or
“death-hunters,” as they are often called, are in London most persistent
advertisers. They can hardly think that people will die to oblige them
and do good for trade, yet in some districts they will, with the most
undeviating persistency, drop their little books, informing you how,
when, where, and at what rates you may be buried with economy or
despatch, or both, as the case may be, down your area, or poke them
under your door, or into the letter-box. More, it is stated on good
authority, than one pushing contractor, living in a poor neighbourhood,
obtains a list of all the folk attended by the parish doctor, and at
each of the houses leaves his little pamphlet, let us hope with the
desire of cheering and comforting the sick and ailing. To such a man
Death must come indeed as a friend, so long, of course, as the grim king
comes to the customers only.
A few years back, when hoardings were common property, the undertakers
had a knack of posting their dismal little price-lists in the centre of
great broadsheets likely to attract any unusual share of attention. They
were not particular, however, and any vantage space, from a doorpost to
a dead wall, came within their comprehension. Another ingenious, and,
from its colour, somewhat suggestive, plan was about this time brought
into requisition by an undertaker for the destruction of a successful
rival’s advertisements. He armed one of his assistants with a great can
of blacking and a brush, and instructed him to go by secret ways and
deface the opposition placards. Of course the other man followed suit,
and for a time an undertaker’s bill was known best by its illegibility.
But ultimately these two men of colour met and fought with the
instruments provided by their employers. They did not look lovely when
charged before a magistrate next morning, and being bound over to keep
the peace, departed to worry each other, or each other’s bills, no more.
There is another small bill feature of advertising London which is so
objectionable that we will pass it by with a simple thankful notice that
its promoters are sometimes overtaken by tardy but ironhanded justice.
Most people can recollect the hideous glass pillars or “indicators”
which, for advertising purposes, were stuck about London. The first one
made its appearance at Hyde Park Corner, and though, in deference to
public opinion, it did not remain there very long, less aristocratic
neighbourhoods had to bear their adornments until the complete failure
of the attempt to obtain advertisements to fill the vacant spaces showed
how fatuous was the project. The last of these posts, we remember, was
opposite the Angel at Islington, and there, assisted by local faith and
indolence, it remained until a short time back. But it too has gone now,
and with it has almost faded the recollection of these hideous
nightmares of advertising.
The huge vans, plastered all over with bills, which used to traverse
London, to the terror of the horses and wonder of the yokels, were
improved off the face of the earth a quarter of a century ago; and now
the only perambulating advertisement we have is the melancholy
sandwich-man and the dispenser of handbills, gentlemen who sometimes
“double their parts,” to use a theatrical expression. To a playhouse
manager we owe the biggest thing in street and general advertising--that
in connection with the “Dead Heart”--that has yet been recorded. Mr
Smith, who had charge of this department of the Adelphi, has published a
statement which gives the totals as follows:--10,000,000 adhesive labels
(which, by the way, were an intolerable nuisance), 30,000 small cuts of
the guillotine scene, 5000 reams of note-paper, 110,000 business
envelopes, 60,000 stamped envelopes, 2000 six-sheet cuts of Bastile
scene, 5,000,000 handbills, 1000 six-sheet posters, 500 slips, 1,000,000
cards heartshaped, 100 twenty-eight sheet posters, and 20,000 folio
cards for shop windows. This was quite exclusive of newspaper wrappers
and various other ingenious means of attracting attention to the play
throughout the United Kingdom.
Among other forms of advertising, that on the copper coinage must not be
forgotten. The extensive defacement of the pence and halfpence of the
realm in the interests of a well-known weekly paper ultimately led to
the interference of Parliament, and may fairly be regarded as the cause,
or at all events as one of the principal causes, of the sum of £10,000
being voted in July 1855 for the replacement of the old, worn, battered,
and mixed coppers by our present bronze coinage.
* * * * *
And now, having given a hurried and summarised glance at the growth and
progress of advertising of all kinds and descriptions, from the earliest
periods till the present time, we will begin at the beginning, and tell
the story with all its ramifications, mainly according to those best
possible authorities, the advertisements themselves.
[4] The opening notice of the baths at Pompeii was almost perfect when
discovered, and originally read thus:--“Dedicatone . Thermarum .
Muneris . Cnæi . Allei . Nigidii . Maii . Venalio . Athelæ .
Sparsiones . Vela . Erunt . Maio . Principi . Coloniæ . Feliciter.”
[5] _Notes and Queries_, vol. xi., 3d series.
[6] “History of Signboards.”