Morris tribune., 1895-10-16
ADVERTISING IN CARS
A NEW BUSINESS WHICH AMOUNTS
TO $4,000, 900 A YEAR.
The Reason Why 1t Has Its limitations.
All Grown Up Within Very Few Years.
Boston's Serious View of the Ad. Writ
er,s Attempts At Humor.

All Grown Up Within a Very Few Years
er's Attempts az Humor.
The annual expenditure for street Car
! advertising in the United States has in
FIVE years grown from $500, 900 to So,
900, 900, and is constantly increasing.
Although it is yet small in comparison
| with the enormous amount of money
paid for newspaper advertising, it is,
for various reasons, peculiarly inter-
esting development of modern business
methods 1t is an outgrowth of impor-
tant social betterments, Few field for
the display of artistic and literary tai
ent, and not inconsiderable element of
entertainment as well as practical in
formation for the quick witted Ameri-
can public. It is also a fed curiously
liable to be cornered. Newspapers may
add on columns and pages to accommo-
date advertisers, magazines be made a
few ounces or pounds heavier to the
same end, new publications without
number be set going and blllboards en-
larged indefinitely. In fact, every other
vehicle of advertising has a quality of
elasticity that is entirely lacking in the
street car method New lines will not be
started or even more cars put on to give
opportunities to advertisers. Those
things are determined by the require
ments Of local travel. And when the Is
advertising spaces in car are filled the
seventeenth advertiser who comes along
will have'to wait his chance for some
one else to drop out.
Not infrequently the limit Of accom-
mediation has been reached in Boston
and other New England cities. peculiar
ly favored by advertisers, and appli-
cants for space have had to wait for the
expiration Of running contracts before
they could gain entrance. Already half
dozen firms are spending from SO, eco
to 100000 year each in this way, at
least 20 concerns each expend from $45,-
600 to SO, 600, and from 30 to 80 may
be counted who put out from $40, 900 to
$40, 600 each. These sums, it is under,
stood, are paid for the actual rental of
spaces in the street cars, the placing of
the cards in them and the watching nee
essary to. see that the cars are run ac-
cording to contract. The cost of getting
up the cards, which is very considerable,
is outside this estimate. To make up
the remainder of the estimated So, 000,
900 of total annual expenditure an ar
my of smaller advertisers, generally 10
cal only, lend their aid.
The growth of street car advertising
has been to very marked degree de-
pendent upon and synchronous with
marked improvements in street car serv-
ice. It was very Insignificant interest
in the old days Of the horse cars prior to
1878. The low ceiled, dingy, i'll lighted
vehicles then in use carried a few plain,
unattractive cards. half obscured by
dust and covered by glass, the refrac-
tions from which made them difficult
to decipher. Only local advertisers occu-
pied spaces and did SO rather to help
struggling enterprise or get rid of per-
sistent solicitor than through any hope
of profit from the investment. Then, IN
San Francisco primarily, cable traction
began to take the place of horses, ena
bling the employment Of roomier, loft
Ter cars, handsomer in every detail OF
materials, form and color than the old
ones, and some genius evolved the hap
by idea of combining the advertising
cards by holdings in concave spaces and
without glass. At once the cards were
made to conform to their improved sur
roundings. They were more handsome
" designed, printed in bright, attract
i've colors and sometimes illustrated.
1t was not until 1888, when electric
propulsion had been clearly demon
strated to be commercially practicable
and trolley lines were put in operation
all over the country, that street car adj
vertising began to assume its present
character AS before the improvement
in it was in keeping with the better
ment of the vehicles, which were now
no longer simply comfortable, but be-
came luxurious. The amount Of interest
taken in the advertising cards, as well as
the vigilance of critical observation, is
sometimes demonstrated by protests
against some novelty within the first
hour of its appearance. That is particu
larly likely to happen in Boston, where
the committee for regulating the uni
verse is largely represented. That com
mittee is always in session, one of its
members constitutes a quorum. and it
seldom lacks thingsto kick at. One day,
some months ago, it was moved to turn
itself loose on the subject Of new card
that flashed out at once in all the ears:
The man who lets lady stand
Where others push and crowd her
Deserves to have the strongest brand
OF -'s baking powder
To raise him.
The Boston newspapers received let
tiers of indignant protest against the adj
vertiser's audacity in presuming to teach
Bostonians courtesy under the guise of