The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-03-23 00:00:00

PORTERS' WAGES.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
SlR,—The Editor of the Mercury has inserted a letter
in his paper to-day, in which he says the Dock Committee
should follow the example of Messrs. Sandars and Claxton
and Mr. Mathew Gregson, and raise the rate of wages for
their labourers from 18s. to 21s. a week. Now, I con-
sider myself as able as the majority of the porters at the
Albert Dock warehouses to do my work as a porter, and
right content should I be if I could get constant work
there at.lBs. a week. Some people think it accords with
their interest to make the labouring part of the commu-
nity dissatisfied ; but lam convinced that many of the
well-disposed of the porters of Liverpool would be quite
content with 18s. a week.—Yours, &c.
Friday, March 19, 1847.

A PORTER.

THE MERCURY AND ITS ADVERTISERS,

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
SIR,—AS a tradesman of Liverpool, compelled to keep
my name and business pretensions before the world, I
have long been annoyed, and heavily taxed too, by the
number of papers necessary to be advertised in for the
purpose of informing all classes of the public with respect
to the business I am carrying on, This difficulty, I find,
is about to be increased by the grasping spirit of one of
the dearest of your contemporaries—the dearest to the
pockets, not to the affections, of most of those who have
to do with him. I refer to the announced intention of
the Mercury to publish his paper twice a week,—viz., on
Tuesday and Friday. Now, this is the predicament in
which I am placed by the Mercury's rather late acknow-
ledgment of the principle upon which you and others have
acted, that newspapers, like other articles of sale, ought
to be cheapened. I have advertised for years in the
Mercury, under the idea that it was the most extensively
circulated paper in Liverpool. Of late I have felt that
other papers were fast creeping upon the heels of that in
question, and that some (amongst them your own valued
publication) were superior in influence, and nearly equal
in circulation. Still I kept to the Mercury, convinced
that its columns were the proper medium of appeal to my
low customers. For the future, however, I feel undeter-
mined how to act. I have sufficient knowledge of the
world to know that the kind of subscribers whichtlie
Mercury has hitherto had arc not likely to take both
Tuesday's and-Friday's papers. Barbers' shops arid ferry
shops, little country public-houses, and some private
families, cannot afford to take in two
apsapmeorsst,
laiknedlywoilfl nottile
take one containing
Frngiondlayy,ls half
earewuereyk's news. If,there-
fpre,
two to have a decent circulation, I cannot assure myself
that I am getting the same value for my money as for-
merly ; indeed, I am sure of this fact. On the other
hand, if I give my support to respectable papers, I think
I shall derive increased value from my advertisements,
and I can supply the want of the Mercury by a slightly
increased liberality in circulars, &C.
My object, sir, in writing to you, is to ask of advertisers
like myself to pause before committing themselves to the
support of what is obviously an attempt to extend a
monopoly. If the truth could be known, the Mercury's
circulation is at present a very inferior oue to some of the
papers in the town. I dare say your own bona fide sale
exceeds it. The fact, sir, is, that in these times trades.-
men cannot afford to advertise in half the papers they are
solicited by ; and my own resolution is, that a half
Mercury's circulation I shall not pay for at double price.
—I am, sir, your obedient servant,
AN ADV.gRT.ISM
hold-street, 20th March.