Year: 1877




The Advertising Dodge--Pianos for n


Song--Luck in Lotteries--A Word to


the Foolish.


Ne,o York. Correspondence Ne,cbe,7y IIerald.


On my table, rs I sit down to
write, are twenty-five letters-
eighteen of'them from difforent por-
tions of tho United States, as far
apart as Maine and Texas, three
from ireland and one from England
-all of them arc letters of inquiry
as to the character of New York
firms, which have made speciality
of advertising. TO describe the
various articles that enter into their
catalogues would be as impossible
as it would be to discover the
moons Of Mars through a. penny
whistle. In every instance these
letters refer to some bold>faced
swlndle, and to an ordinary New
Yorker the deception is beneath
contempt. How men in their
senses can be duped by them is a
mystery, but how newspaper men,
OF all others, can be trapped by
these shallow thieving scoundrels,
is beyond the comprehension of
those who under tho most favorable
circumstances are prone to take 10
very charitable view of humanity.


Swindling advertising has been
reduced to a science in New York,
and for the benefit of my brethren
Of the press I propose in the limits
of this letter to give a few specimens
of the system by which the news
papers of the United States are
annually robbed of hundreds of
thousands of dollars.


TO begin, the advertising swindler
never is able to pay cash, but his
promissory note is always ready in
from thirty to ninety days; he is
willing to take from ten lines to
column, and the articles with which
he offers to enrich the public, en-
brace every conceivable thing, from
a jew's-harp to grand piano.
There are two localities in New
York, especially rich in advertising
swindlers, Bond street and Bleecker
street, each contending for su-
premacy. I do not mean to say
that there ore not ether places in
New York, which deserve an
especial distinction, but in these
favored localities the genus
swindler fourishes with perennial
glory. One advertises beautiful
sets of jewelry for twenty-five and
fifty cents. You can remit the sum
in postage stamps or currency, and
he will assume the risk. The stuff
he sends out is not worth ten cents
bushel, being made of glue with
a little piece of wire stuck in them
to hang them in the ears, which
they poison when they touch, and
the materials of which they are
composed would melt down like
snow with the thermometer at
ninety, but the poor fool deserves
to be swindled who expects to get
a fine set of jewelry for twenty five
or fifty cents. Another individual
advertises n piano for one hundred
and seventy-tive dollars, equal to
those manufactured by Chickering
and Steinway for one thousand.
In fact so bold have these swindlers
become that they have advertised
Chickering, Steinway and Weber
pianos for 1926 piece; a largo
firm in the United States has been
filled with these counterfeit rattle
traps, each one of which should
have consigned the maker to the
walls of State Prison.


A few months ago the American
Patent Roofing Company sent their
advertisements, payable in thirty
and sixty days, all over the United
States; hundreds of papers insert-
ed the advertisement, and not one
of them ever got cent. AT the
request of a paper down South, I
called at the John street Office to
find an empty room and the answer
of no effects. Another individual


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