The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-08-18
CIGARETTE PICTURES.
Few York Graphic.

ROW IoIk
 "How would you like to see your photograph on cigarette package?"
 "What horrid suggestion! Only actresses, base ball players and other dreadful people have such things taken"
 "And yet your own portrait may appear in such 8 way, by the thou sands of copies, tomorrow or the day after"
 "Why, what can you mean? How is such a thing possible?" demandt d the young girl lsughingly.
 "Very easily," replied her male cousin. "No one who employs the services of any ordinary photographer is secure against misfortune of the sort. The likeness-if pleasing to the eye-is always apt to be secured by some enterprising manufacturer of cigarette art products, who employs agents to travel about and gather up new material"
 "But no decent photographic artist will sell his customers pictures-cer- tainly not for so disgusting 8 pur- pose"
 "That is true enough in theory, but not in practice. The cigarette por- trait maker is acquainted with meth- ods by which he is able to secure for his own use the photograph of pretty nearly any one he chooses. In his pay are men who go about in the guise of canvassers from one photographic stu dio to another offering to buy club and other tickets and sell them on com- mission. Now, the ticket selling in this way has become well-nigh uni versal among sun-picture makers, who are not likely to refuse the gift of samples to anybody who will agree to drum up custom for them. This rule applies even to many concerns of the first class. In good faith, the pretended canvasser is supplied with a number of the prettiest cabinets, etc., in stock, which are subsequently turned oyer to his employer for con- sideration. Very likely two or three particularly charming ones are found in the lot, and these are reproduced without scruple, to serve as an adver- tisement for the Dudes Delight or Crooked Cut brands ofopium- loaded paper. If the pirates are not success full in obtaining the likeness they want by such methods they do not hesitate to secure them by bribing the employees in the studios. Not long ago the photographs of an entire young ladies' school near Boston were gotten hold of in this manner and published. Fifty cents or a dollar apiece for copies of exceptionally se- ductive negatives will furnish big temptation to a sub- assistant operator on dry plates. Thus no one who can take pretty picture is safe against the danger of being mounted, in counterfeit presentment, on scigarette packages, in company with Mile. Leila of the Bouffes Parisennes, Mike Kelley of the Boston base ball club, the queen of the New York demi- monde and other like celebrities."
 "That is all quite true,o reluctantly admitted Boston's crack fashionable photographer yesterday, to whom the above remarks were quoted. "We have small means of defence against these unprincipled people, who will stop at nothing in their efforts to se- cure what they want. The portraits of private individuals are, as 6 rule, too commonplace for their uses; but when they can find one that is ex- ceptionally pretty or attractive, they are always eager to get 1t. A young woman who has . pleasing picture taken in photographic studio can hardly be certain that she will not subsequently, appear as . cigarette ad- vertisement, though the chances in an individual case of such an accident arc necessarily small. If the likeness is exposed in the window or seen in any other way by the cigarette agents, they will surely try to obtain it-ifI it takes their eye-by bribery or otherwise. Such cases have given rise lately to suits against the producers in several instances, but it is almost impossible to get any legal satisfac- ton out of them Under the cir. cumstances it is adviAble that young women who sit for pictures should avoid theatrical attitudes and iow- necked dresses, which may render their counterfeit presentments more available from the cigarette feDd's point of view. Sooner or later I hope to see . law paced that will hold these scoundrels and put stop to their abominAble business."
 "Will you not tell me-" inquired the writer, @somcthing of the method by which these cigArette pictures arel