The Leavenworth weekly times. [volume] (Leavenworth, Kan.) 1870-1880, 1877-04-19
Business AnOmalies-

The advertisements of a newspaper in
good standing are unique reflex Of a com
munity's most varied and intricate inter
ests and endeavors. All forms of life art
touched with broad crayon lines by thest
shifting outlines. There is a journal il
Philadelphia which has for years circula'
ted enormously because OF the variety and
immenaity of its advertisements To-day
it circulates among the prim half million
Of PhiladelphIans and through the state Of
Philadelphia five copies TO one Of every
other Journal. Nor is this wonderful dis.
persion accounted for by the commercial
or trade aspect Of advertisements. For ten
who read the advertising pages to expedite
business negotiations or secure bargains
there are fifty who con them over to follow
the cross currents of life; to lose
themselves in fascinating reverie over
the manifold subtle suggestion they
give Of life and enterprise; of cue
cess and failure; of happiness and
misery. Pictures sometimes in chalk lines.
sometimes in delicate hair touches, of the
| joys and sOrrows that the Interpretation
of human interest, must Bece ssarily bring
about where civilized communities exist.
The advertising columns are a sort of sem
sitive pisnt, rejecting as truly the atmos-
phere Of success or failure as the garden
shrub the change from rain 10 sunshine,
night TO darkness. Advert ement reading,
like relish for lobster or shrimp salad, l.
a cultivated taste, which grows on Its own
encouraging, and the truth OF this is at
tested in the London, Paris, Berlin, and
Vienna journals, where 10 one column Of
news or miscellany there are ten of adyer-
tisements To an American the sight of the
prodigious blankets of inconceivably di-
verse announcements is a encouragement
which would ruin the circulation of an
American journal. But to the foreigner,
educated in the fiuctuating needs of life in
thickly settled states, il Ia an irresist. bic
invitation. In any public place in London,
or Paris, or Vienna, or Berlin, the casual
reader will be marked turning fret 10 the
advertising pages, as women in America
turn fIst TO marriages and deaths, and men
10 divorces and ballet chronicles An ordina-
less on an average than three pages of ad
W ohS VI ~
stranger taking up such a eheet is at once
lost in its wonderful suggestions 1t is
revelation Of the actual life Of a commune
~ more unspeakably eloquent than formal
description. There ia no mirror which SO
exact v reflects the status of home industry,
trade and commerce as the advertising col
umns Of prosperous and widely circulated
newspaper. though by the came token
there is whimsical law governing This
business OF advertising follow ing circula-
ton which illustrates the very phase Of ad-
vertising We are discussing. In New York.
many years $50, under J. Watson Webb,
the Courier and Enquirer was the great and
only medium for the publication Of auction
notices. Ii gained an enoI nous circulation
in consequence Of this monopoly, and held
it for y. airs. In the fuliness of time other
journals eclipsed it in all respects, and
it d~indled into utter iDsignifcance. But
with an inexplicable persisiency, the
auctionering interests of the city
their notices TO The Couie's col
umns, though those columns were
no, seen by = hundrdth part of the
people that read any of the other daily
journals The paper suspended in time,
and that peculiar class OF advertising, BY
an amusing freak, selected, or was trans-
ferred TO, with the "goOd will" OF the mort
bund journal, another pap-r OF little circu-
laiion. 1t has remained there persist. nifty
since, though the fact ha- been notorious
that the journal has little circulation and
is constantly on the verge of snspeT sion
Nor is this an isolated case, nor New York
the only large city where this anomaly
may be marked. Caprice, chance, directs