By Advertisers and on Sign-boards.
Two young women want washing.
Teeth extracted with great pains.
Babies taken and finished in ten minutes by a country photographer.
Wood and coal split.
Wanted, a female who has a knowledge of fitting boots of a good moral
character.
For sale, a handsome piano, the property of a young lady who is leaving
Scotland in a walnut case with turned legs.
A large Spanish blue gentleman's cloak lost in the neighborhood of the
market.
To be sold, a splendid gray horse, calculated for a charger, or would
carry a lady with a switch tail.
Wanted, a young man to take charge of horses of a religious turn of
mind.
A lady advertises her desire for a husband "with a Roman nose having
strong religious tendencies."
Wanted, a young man to look after a horse of the Methodist persuasion.
A chemist inquires, "Will the gentleman who left his stomach for
analysis please call and get it, together with the result?"
Wanted, an accomplished poodle nurse. Wages, $5.00 a week.
In the far West a man advertises for a woman "to wash, iron and milk one
or two cows."
Lost a cameo brooch representing Venus and Adonis on the Drumcondra Road
about 10 o'clock on Tuesday evening.
An advertiser, having made an advantageous purchase, offers for sale, on
very low terms, "six dozen of prime port wine, late the property of a
gentleman forty years of age, full of body, and with a high bouquet."
A steamboat-captain, in advertising for an excursion, closes thus:
"Tickets, 25 cents; children half price, to be had at the captain's
office."
Among carriages to be disposed of, mention is made of "a mail phaeton,
the property of a gentleman with a moveable head as good as new."
An inducement to return property is offered as follows: "If the
gentleman who keeps the shoe store with a red head will return the
umbrella of a young lady with whalebone ribs and an iron handle to the
slate-roofed grocer's shop, he will hear of something to his advantage,
as the same is a gift of a deceased mother now no more with the name
engraved upon it."
An English matrimonial advertisement reads as follows: "A young man
about 25 years of Age, in a very good trade, whose Father will make him
worth L1000, would willingly embrace a suitable MATCH. He has been
brought up a Dissenter with his Parents, and is a sober man."
A landlady, innocent of grammatical knowledge, advertises that she has
"a fine, airy, well-furnished bedroom for a gentleman twelve feet
square"; another has "a cheap and desirable suit of rooms for a
respectable family in good repair"; still another has "a hall bedroom
for a single woman 8 x 12."
A photographer's sign reads: "This style 3 pictures finished in fifteen
minutes while you wait for twenty-five cents beautifully colored."
A cheap restaurant displays this sign: "Oyster pies open all night," and
"Coffee and cakes off the griddle."
A baker displays the sign, "Family Baking Done Here." The sign would
look more appropriate if it were in front of some of our "cool and
well-ventilated" summer-resort hotels.
The sign at Abraham Lowe's inn, Douglas, Isle of Man, is accompanied by
this quaint verse:
"I'm Abraham Lowe, and half way up the hill,
If I were higher up wat's funnier still,
I should be Lowe. Come in and take your fill
Of porter, ale, wine, spirits what you will.
Step in, my friend, I pray no further go,
My prices, like myself, are always low."
On a vacant lot back of Covington, Kentucky, is posted this sign: "No
plane base Boll on these Primaces."
Notice in a Hoboken ferry-boat: "The seats in this cabin are reserved
for ladies. Gentlemen are requested not to occupy them until the ladies
are seated."
A sign in a Pennsylvania town reads as follows: "John Smith, teacher of
cowtillions and other dances--grammar taut in the neatest manner--fresh
salt herrin on draft--likewise Goodfreys cordjial--rutes sassage and
other garden truck--N. B. bawl on friday nite--prayer meetin
chuesday--also salme singing by the quire."
The following notice appeared on the fence of a vacant lot in Brooklyn:
"All persons are forbidden to throw ashes on this lot under penalty of
the law or any other garbage."
A barber's sign in Buffalo, N.Y., has the following: "This is the place
for physiognomical hair-cutting and ecstatic shaving and shampooing."
A San Francisco boot-black, of poetic aspirations, proclaims his
superior skill in the following lines, pasted over the door of his
establishment:
"No day was e'er so bright,
So black was never a night,
As will your boots be, if you get
Them blacked right in here, you bet!"
The following appears on a Welsh shoemaker's sign-board: "Pryce Dyas
Coblar, dealer in Bacco Shag and Pig Tail Bacon and Ginarbread, Eggs
laid by me, and very good Paradise in the summer, Gentlemen and Lady can
have good Tae and Crumpets and Straw berry with a scim milk, because I
can't get no cream. N. B. Shuse and Boots mended very well."
An Irish inn exhibits the following in large type:
"Within this hive we're all alive,
With whiskey sweet as honey;
If you are dry, step in and try,
But don't forget your money."
An inn near London displays a board with the following inscription:
"_Call_--Softly,
_Drink_ Moderately,
Pay _Honourably_;
Be good Company,
Part FRIENDLY,
Go HOME quietly.
Let those lines be no MAN'S sorrow,
Pay to DAY and i'll TRUST tomorrow."