The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-03-11 00:00:00

ADVERTISING IN THE NEWSPAPERS.

We have always a strong reluctance to speak on any subject
connected with the "shop ;" but when we see attempts made
to mislead the public on matters of importance equally to the
community and ourselves, we cannot consent to remain silent.
We allude to the subject of advertising. in the newspapers,
which has given rise to various speculations amongst certain
portions of the press. In the first place, it must strike every
one that, in expressing an opinion with regard to the propriety
and value of publishing announcements in the papers, each
journal is extremely apt to laud its own columns. This is na-
tural, and does nobrirly any harm—at least nobody of the slight-
est discernment. But we can hardly be taxed with a wish to
pervert the fact for selfish purposes, when we assert what all
must plainly see, that the conservative journals are the most eli-
gible channels of communication between the advertising and
purchasing classes. A whig or radical newspaper er magazine
may have a large circulation; but of what use is it to the adver-
tiser? None whatever; for in almost every case—we except
quack "ductors"—the advertiser addresses the respectable and
wealthy classes -of the public—those who possess bo:h the in-
clination and the means of purchasing his commodities. The
whig and radical periodicals are neither read nor bought by
such classes—their circulation is strictly limited in to the hum-
blest and poorest portion of the people: indeed, the radical pa-
pers ,ind magazines are, without exception rigmouslv excluded
from families of respectability—awl are only purchased by
dabs of operatives and labourers, and a few of the reading-
room keepers. , On the other hand, the conservative journals
and magazines, being devoted to the support of religion
and public morality, as well as of social order and
the established institutions of the country, are freely and
gladLy—adinitted_ into ...the hou.s,es of the_aniddle and upper_
classes whose recreative literature hey chiefly form. We
appeal to the experience :of every person having access to
the circles we describe, if this represemation be riot strictly
true. Why then t,hotild it surprise the liberals that their news-
papers andmagazfnes are but poorly "advertised" when com-
pared with those of conservative principles? Law...vgents, pub-
fishers, merchants, shopkeepers, and tradesmen, very properly
stioly their own interest in preference to giving wayto their
political predilections, and accordingly they send their adver-
tisementsio those periodicals which they know to be read by
th...se classes whose patronage they court. 'The extent of cir-
culation k to them comparatively a secondary matter; for a
thousand conservative readers will furnish more customers for
their goodi than ten thousand persons of the lower orders. We
tire amused, therefore, to observe the silence preserved by the
wing and radical papers on the operation of the material t ir-
CUlnstance which we have mentioned—we mean the distinction
existing between , the two classes of readers—itivolving, as it
does, the very principle upon which the entire advertising sys-
tem is founded, a principle which neces3ari)r dooms our • revo-
lutionary and infidel contemporaries to the indifferehce and
neglect of the mercantile portion of the community.—Ediabwrgh
Evening Post.