Los Angeles herald., 1906-06-24

date philosophy. one Of them is nov
city advertising.
The novelty advertiser sinks any sem
sitlveuess he may have iunately pos
sessed below a surface composed half
and half Of impudence and GOODNESS
with a dash of personal dignity, when
everything else fails. and an clement OF
adaptabllity at all times. He may be
q sandwich man. an Indian, a Pierrot,
and you may pity him. seeing in his
profession the last resort of need.
Not at all. While this may be true
of some, the majority in the calling are
soldiers Of fortune. who pity men tied
to office desks and 9-to-4 routines.
Recently shoppers have noticed IN
the streets of New York a tall, eXag-
geratedly dressed Frenchman, who toys
with his Vandyke beard or his monocle
brushes the dust from his checked
trousers or spotted waistcoat while ne
Qlides slowly or quickly on roller skates
through the watching crowds. He has
a small colored tiger in an Immaculate
uniform of skin-tight trousers, -ong
coat and tiny silk hat, who carries
suit case on which is printed the name
of the firm the pair are advertising.
The Frenchman, luxuriant as his sar-
torial equipment is, has no office build
ing into which he can invite the inter-
viewer. hut he does possess a locker
and the right of way in the establish
ment from which he emerges twice
day for his regular exercise which ne
saws keeps his figure down and his splr-
its and bank account up. In qulet
corner of this establishment ne talks
about his calling.
"After you've been a novelty adver-
lean
limb over the other, "any other work is
as tame as turning handspring to a
trained acrobat. Perhaps I'm an out
and out Bohemian, but, honestly, II
had to tell the truth. I should say that
the real reason why l began TINS klnd
of thing was that I've always llked louu
clothes. and while some men work that
tendency out on the boards, I've Simply
taken a little bigger stage for mine
that's all.
added to this natural desire to go
the best dresser one better. have had
experience in the advertising depart
ment of various newspapers, ana the
experience gained there taught me that
II YOU want to sell goods you've got to
advertise in some way that Will attracl
the attention of the crowd.
"Take YOUR own case. Would you be
nearly as interested in a paragraph in
a magazine about some new breakfast
food as Won would be if you witnessed
the same article advertised by some one
who knew how to Rube place?
"Rube?" the interruption has 10
come.
A look of pity is followed by the ex-
PLANTATION. why, that's the reg uldI eA
nression of the trade. You Rube place
when YOU send out some one to adver-
tise an article the way I'm doing. Tne
first advertisers were the hayseeds'
T1,hes as they're called, and now any
hodv Is a Rube who dresses up ana
walks about for some firm. L was one
of the original Rubes. Those were
days.
He stops to wipe off some reminiscent
perspiration from his brow.
'.Of course the crowds were little
more pronounced in their methods then
and one had to keep his weather eye
omen. Now it's hard to get any atten-
tion. except in New York; that's a
oinch.
1.-THE usual way was to walk along as
if you had been a farmer all your lie
and as if your makeup WASH a plt ous
of the common. Then suddenly you
stop, rush out into the middle of the
street. or if the crowd kept off of you
the sidewalk would do, and stoop over
to pick something up.
Naturally. the crowd stopped, too,
and as soon as you had them all llned
up watching, you'd simply flap your
coattail in a dignified manner, and on
the inside would be painted the name
of the article you'd been hired to ad-
vertise.
81 had a favorable trick that never
failed to work. There's nothing so fool
ish a man can do that some other fool
won't think he really means 1t. We've
got lot of belief in our fellow mans
common sense, tell you.
This trick was to become suddenly
very much interested in seeing how the
trolley cars worked. I'd go out in the
street and lie down fiat so that 1 could
see the slot and then I'd hear burst
of laughter and the remarks, Amt he
a jay?' or Whats the jay doin'? and
with that for a cue, I'd flag the crowd
on the sidewalk with the coattails and
then they'd see that l was the only one
in the whole outfit that was attending
strictly to business and the only jays
about were those looking in.
IT will say this, that no matter how
badly a crowd is fooled it never has any
resentment, and really enjoys the joke.
Another one of my devices was to
stand plumb in the middle of the car
track and look up with the expression
of wonder at some one of the tall sky
scrapers. The crowd loved that, / guess
there was always a chance 1 might get
run over and they could say, Served
the jay right
IT never stayed there very long unless
I happened to know the motorman. If
he was a friend of mine he'd run his
car along in such a way that I'd get
a good bump and sometimes get
knocked over, and when the crowd
rushed out to pick up the remains I'd
lie sprawling in the dust with the ad-
vertisement plainly written visible
Then they'd cuss and laugh. too.
FINALLY Rubes got so plentiful that
nobody paid any attention to them and
the salaries took a tumble. so 1t was
necessary to try new makeup.
Il started out as fat German, and
only used words that had Rhine wine
endlngs. I took camera along and
used to go through the motions of TAX
ing pictures, and just at the moment
that the crowd thought 1 was going to
take a picture roller dropped from
the end of the machine with the words
of the ad' on it.
But fat Germans and camera fiends
are too plentiful and try as l would
with a makeup l couldn't look any
worse than the Germans you meet ev-
cry day. especially those in Milwaukee