The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-06-03
RiLL-PosIlNe.
The Napo1eonfc Qualifications Necessary
to Sticking Up Sheets.

The Napoleonic Qualifications Necessary
to Sticking Up Sheets.
Bill-posting, like editing paper, is
something that every one thinks he
can do, and yet not one in ten thousand
is qualified by nature or education to
be bill-poster. as plebian as the title
may appear. 1t is business requiring
capital, energy, tact, perseverance, pa
tience, gall, good temper, firmness and
shrewd knowledge of human nature.
To Macbeth's question, "Who can be
wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
loyal and neutral in a moment?" the
man who knows him would unhesi-
tatingly answer: '.The bill-poster."
He controls miles upon miles of bill
boards which have to be built and paid
for; he controls acres upon acres of
dead wall space in the city which have
to be rented from the property owners
or lessees; he cajoles thousands of his
fellow citizens out of hundreds of thou
sands of window spaces, and yet is
deemed by the chronic dead-head ticket
seeker benefactor. He uses oceans
of paste made from hundreds of barrels
| of flour to stick tons of paper into at
tractive positions, where the details
will be displayed so prominently that he
who runs may read. To see him
in his diplomatic capacity, watch
him entertain a crowd of advance
agents for coming shows, each one of
whom insists on having his paper
up first and on securing control of the
very best stands in the city. He
will converse Familiarity, even jocularly,
Of ''three-sheets, dodgers, "''snipes,"
changers" steamers" and such
things in manner which would puz-
zle the faculty of Harvard and make
Richard Grant White howl with agony,
thinking the English tongue was being
| ruthlessly butchered to make Pitts
burgh holiday.
A ''stand" is composed of eight, ten,
twelve, twenty or more sheets of litho-
| graphed or printed show paper, each
sheet measuring 24x38 inches. A
changer" is long printed announce
ment for displaying either indoors or
out, and measuring about 14x36 inches,
| while window work. comprises the
photographic pictures, colored or plain,
| (the picture, not the subjects,) which
| adorn the show-windows of places
where the public most do congregate.
'.Snipes" are these odd little specimens
of Typography which so grotesquely
ornament the curbstones, telegraph
poles and other out-of-the-way places.
With the ''dodger" all are familiar
from the frequency with which they
have tried to dodge the boys who insist
on thrusting them into the hands of
pedestrians.
But all this, though showing the in.
exhaustible resources of the bill-poster
in technical knowledge by no means
demonstrates his industry, delicacy of
touch, and wonderful capacity for
grasping coign of vantage on some
burned-out building, suburban barn or
isolated house of which the walls are
controlled by crusty and conservative
proprietor. Watch him as he handles
wet paper on windy days with twelve
foot brush, and Judge if it does not re-
the laying of gold-leaf or the tuning of
an Eolian harp. Listen to him as he
persuades, exhorts, fatters and some
times, it is to be feared, steps slightly
beyond the strict confines of the truth
to secure an inch and appropriates
several square yards of display space,
and you will acknowledge that bill
/ posting is indeed great business, and
| one whose followers are indeed born,
| not made.-Pittsbxr0h Chronicle Tele-
graph.