The democrat. [volume] (Weston, W. Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-04-17
Concerning Advertising.

a writer in Applston's Journal rossips
about the art OF advertising. The enor.
nous increase in the number Of adyer.
hsements nowadays, he says, has natu-
rally caused deal OF competition peo-
pie must keep pace with the times and
consequently brains are daily tortured
and ingenuity racked to produce some
thing original and startling to catch the
public. eye and tickle popular fancy.
Sometimes we see notice s.set IN" in
the actual shape and form of the article
advertised, such as o teapot or hat :;
again the paragraph appears with q rough
blank line drawn completely through it
an artistic idea, and one which rarely
failed to attract attention before it be.
come so common. Then We have occa.
slonally whole column left blank, with
the exception OF the name and address
OF the advertiser with one or two of his
"specialties." All these, however, are
mere appeals to the eye; far greater va.
rlety, and even more ingenuity, is dis.
played IN the compilation and actual
words OF the mendacious and insinuating
announcements which have higher and
bolder aim, that OF directly engaging our
sympathies and exciting our interest.
Spacious and plausible, indeed, are some
OF these, the two grand ideas beirg for
the advertiser to leave no stone unturned
to puff his own wares and to depreciate
those OF each and every one of his COM
petitors. Articles christened after the
names of celebrated or notorious charac-
tiers will always command sale for q
time dry goods going at /" Tremendous
sacrifices !" or "Selling under cost !" if
announced in faring capitals, will always
draw crowds OF ladies, while the sterner
sex will offer themselves as only too
willing victims at the shrine of the first
new hat they see labelled "The Latest
Partisan Novelty !"
Advertising, from u mere
convenience, has become positive ne
cessity,, rs well as q nuisance. Stages,
cars, steamboats,, railroad depots, dead
walls, and boardings, are plastered
over and actually prepared with bills
large and small, round and square,
long and short; bills red, yellow,
green, blue, and all the colors OF the
rainbow nay, even the very rocks,
stones, and stumps, are called into re-
QUESTION and, while these herald forth
the praises Of superior excellence of some
cheap sensational periodical, we have
complete and literal realization of
"tongues in trees, sermons in stones, and
'puffs in everything ~ 1t is, indeed,
puff, puff, puff, everywhere. We walk
upon puffs, for the very sidewalks are
stenciled with them; we rub shoulders
with them, for there are living. peripa-
tetic puff.mediums as well, with their
clothes literally puffed with scarlet and
gold letters the air is full of them they
hang suspended across the roadway
they stream from the tops of lofty flag
stats they float from advertising bal
looms, and decend in feecy showers from
the roofs of advertising-carrages they
are officiously crammed into our hand
at every corner, into our pockets, or per-
chance even into our boots, if occasion
offer unfolding our morning paper, 10 |!
puff drops out of it, while the very
piece OF paper, which our obsequious
barber lays on our shoulder to wipe his
razor on, proves to be q puff OF some
abominable cosmetic, put there on pur-
pose to stare us in the face and tempt US
into reckless and unpardonable e1trava-
pance,