Henry Sampson

“ As if judges—and juries too, when they have sense—did not know that the only outlet for ability nine times out of ten in certain conditions of society is in a criminal direction. The kind of skill which brings a man to the Central Criminal Court is not likely to find much of an opening so far as money-getting is concerned, and from the ingenuity of the great bank-forgers of 1873, down to that of Counsellor Kelly and Jim the Penman of watch-robbery recollection, there is a wide field of skill for which virtue has small market, and which therefore turns to vice for its reward. ”

“ I am Monsieur Mangin, the great charlatan of France! Yes, gentlemen, I am a charlatan—a mountebank; it is my profession, not from choice, but from necessity. You, gentlemen, created that necessity! You would not patronise true, unpretending, honest merit, but you are attracted by my glittering casque, my sweeping crest, my waving plumes. You are captivated by din and glitter, and therein lies my strength. ”

“ He also advised married people to sing sometimes. “Music,” said he, “softens the mind of a happy couple, makes them all love, all harmony; their bodies, their souls unite, their existence is melted into a single being, which yields itself up with rapture to divine transports, and loses itself in an Elysium of bliss. In this state, this incessantly progressive enjoyment, the happy couple imagine themselves raised above this world, and become inhabitants of a superior region.” ”

“ The gay colours of the posters, the many-tinted sides of the kiosques, the illuminated “spectacle” columns, the gilt-lettered balconies, the quaint gas devices, and the thousand-and-one pretty and ingenious ideas which are pressed into the service of the modern goddess Publicity, are all items in one lovely and harmonious whole, the most beautiful and the best-arranged city of modern times, Paris. We can teach [609] France many things, probably she can teach us one certainly—which is, that art, even genius, may be successfully applied to such a very small pursuit as that of advertising. ”

“ It is my custom, in a dearth of news, to entertain myself with those collections of advertisements that appear [154] at the end of our public prints. These I consider as accounts of news from the little world, in the same manner that the foregoing parts of the paper are from the great. If in one we hear that a sovereign prince is fled from his capital city, in the other we hear of a tradesman who has shut up his shop and run away. If in one we find the victory of a general, in the other we see the desertion of a private soldier. ”

“ Within the recollections of men who are still young street advertising has considerably changed. Twenty years ago the billsticker was a nuisance of the most intolerable kind, and though we can hardly now consider him a blessing, his habits have changed very much for the better. Never heeding the constant announcement to him to beware, the billsticker cared nothing for the privacy of dead walls, or, for the matter of that, of dwelling-houses and street doors; and though he was hardly ever himself to be seen, his disfigurative work was a prominent feature of the metropolis. ”

“ As for tipsters, who merely offer to give information for a shilling’s worth of stamps, what immorality can there be in that which is not to be found in the ‘selections’ of the daily newspapers? Even the Times, in a roundabout ‘respectable’ way, now and then indicates horses which, in the opinion of its sporting writer, will win certain races, and there is hardly a daily paper in town or country which has not its regular ‘prophet,’ who from day to day lifts up his voice or his pen and offers inducements to the public to bet. ”

“ It is singular that the South Sea Bubble led to little—almost nothing—in the way of advertisements. When we think of the columns which now herald the advent of any new company, or for the matter of that, any new idea of an old company, or any fresh specific or article of clothing, it seems strange that at a time when the art of advertising was fast becoming fashionable, no invitations to subscribe were published in any of the daily or weekly papers that then existed. ”

“ A common mode of advertising, about the same time, was by means of the public crier, κήρυξ. In comparatively modern times our town-criers have been proverbial for murdering the king’s English, or, at all events, of robbing it of all elecutionary beauties. Not so among the Greeks, who were so nice in point of oratorical power, and so offended by a vicious pronunciation, that they would not suffer even the public crier to proclaim their laws unless he was accompanied by a musician, who, in case of an inexact tone, might be ready to give him the proper pitch and expression. ”

“ Can any one of such journals say to us, ‘I am holier than thou, because I sell my prophecies for a penny, and thou insertest the advertisements of men who want a dozen stamps for theirs’? But the whole policy of objecting to certain classes of advertisements is absurd. If the proprietor of a newspaper were to inquire, even superficially, into the bona fides of all the announcements he makes every day, his journal could not be conducted. ”

“ How we travel, by land or sea—how we live, and move, and have our being—is fully set forth in the different announcements which appear in a single copy of that journal. The means of gratifying the most boundless desires, or the most fastidious taste, are placed within the knowledge of any one who chooses to consult its crowded columns. Should a man wish to make an excursion to any part of the globe between Cape Horn and the North Pole, to any port in India, to Australia, to Africa, or to China, he can, by the aid of one number of the Times, make his arrangements over his breakfast. ”

“ The Political Head of The Times, like that of Janus, the Roman Deity, is double faced; with one countenance it will smile continually on the friends of Old England, and with the other will frown incessantly on her enemies.
The alteration we have made in our head is not without precedents. The World has parted with half of its Caput Mortuum and a moiety of its brains. The Herald has cut off half of its head, and has lost its original humour. The Post, it is true, retains its whole head and its old features; and as to the other public prints, they appear as having neither heads nor tails. ”

“ What sting is there in death which handles with wrought gripes are not calculated to pluck away? What victory in the grave which the drops and the velvet pall do not render at least extremely disputable? And, above all, a pretty emblematic plate, with the angel above and the flower beneath, is utterly irresistible. But we in our rhapsody had forgotten to copy the bill:—
BURIAL SOCIETY.
A favourable opportunity now offers to any person, of either sex, who would wish to be buried in a genteel manner, by paying one shilling entrance, and twopence per week for the benefit of the stock. ”

“ If larger prices are charged to men because their advertisements are fraudulent, no amount of false logic or forensic oratory can dispose of the fact that the proprietors of the papers are accessories in any robbery or swindle that is committed; and the insertion of such advertisements, knowing them to be traps for the unwary, at a price which denotes the guilty knowledge of the proprietors, is as gross a breach of the trust reposed in them by the public as was ever committed by smug, well-fed, Sabbath-observing sinners. ”

“ These principles of election are the pastimes and extravagances of human reason, which is of so busy a nature, that it will be exerting itself in the meanest trifles, and working even where it wants materials. The wisest of men are sometimes acted by such unaccountable motives, as the life of the fool and the superstitious is guided by nothing else. I am surprised that none of the fortune-tellers, or, as the French call them, the Diseurs de bonne Aventure, who publish their bills in every quarter of the town, have turned our lotteries to their advantage. ”

“ Sometimes the advertisement of the theatre is summarily stopped, at others the usual first-night privilege is suspended, and not rarely of late years letters have been written and published showing how utterly biassed the criticism has been. But not one of the whole theatrical fraternity ever objects to a gratuitous advertisement. Even a man who comes on with a message likes it, though he in common with all the outsiders of “the profession” affects to despise criticism, and will, on the slightest provocation, speak about well-known writers for the press in a most contemptuous manner. ”

“ London is forty miles away, and the coach is an object of wonder and admiration to the villagers, who look upon the pupils who have come from the great city with awe and reverence, while the master is supposed to diffuse learning from every pore in his body, and to scatter knowledge with every wave of his hand. ”

“ It is now the fashion to decry such adventures as that advertised; but it is hard to believe that both Figg and Sutton were not far more respectable characters than many who practise the licensed and misnamed sport of modern times. For ourselves, we could have looked at such free agents as the rapier and backsword men, or even the more degraded pugilists, doing their best and their worst on each other, rather than sit out an aristocratic pigeon match, assist at a battue, or be party to the coursing of trapped hares and rabbits. ”

“ In an advertisement it is allowed to every man to speak well of himself, but I know not why he should assume the privilege of censuring his neighbour. He may proclaim his own virtue or skill, but ought not to exclude others from the same pretensions. Every man that advertises his own excellence should write with some consciousness of a character which dares to call the attention of the public. ”

“ IT WOULD BE A NOBLE ACT OF HUMANITY if any generous and kind-hearted individual would procure or grant EMPLOYMENT to a suffering individual, in whose behalf this appeal is made. He is of high rank, education, and manners, and in every point of view fit to fill any situation. He is without influential friends, and from complicated frauds and misfortunes, is unable to continue the education of eight lovely children. He seeks nothing for himself, except to be so placed, giving to the hands of his kind benefactor all he receives for his children’s present and future support. ”

“ I am well educated, of refined and intellectual tastes, fond of literature and home, of sound moral principles, eschewing smoking, drinking, gambling, and all fast life delusions, of undoubted respectability, unquestionable honour and integrity, of equable temper, and kind, generous heart. ”

“ Here poets have come and warbled their lays, here sculptors have cut, here painters have robbed the scene of dreamy landscapes, and here the philosopher discovered the stone which made him the alchymist of nature. ”

“ ANCIENT FORMS OF ADVERTISING. Though it would be quite impossible to give any exact idea as to the period when the identical first advertisement of any kind made its appearance, or what particular clime has the honour of introducing a system which now plays so important a part in all civilised countries, there need be no hesitation in ascribing the origin of advertising to the remotest possible times—to the earliest times when competition, caused by an increasing population, led each man to make efforts in that race for prominence which has in one way or other gone on ever since. ”

“ Like everything else of its kind, the excitement in connection with the bottle-hoax soon gave way to fresh topics of public interest. The trick has, however, been revived occasionally with more or less effect; and Theodore Hook’s cruel, and not particularly clever, hoax, which made a house in Berners Street notorious and its occupants miserable, was but a phase of the swindle just related; and being so, loses whatever merit it possessed in the eyes of those who will sacrifice anything to a joke, so long, of course, as it is original and does not interfere with their own comfort or convenience. ”

“ That great philosopher has declared that, though repeatedly taken in, he never could withstand the solicitations of a well-drawn title-page—authority sufficient to justify us in assuming a new head, with a new set of features, but not with a design to impose; for we flatter ourselves the HEADS of The Times will not be found deficient in intellects, but by putting a new face on affairs, will be admired for the light of its countenance wherever it appears. ”

“ IN collecting materials for a History of Costume of more importance than the little handbook which has met with so much favour as an elementary work, I was not only made aware of my own deficiencies, but surprised to find how much more vague are the explanations, and contradictory the statements, of our best authorities, than they appeared to me, when, in the plenitude of my ignorance, I rushed upon almost untrodden ground, and felt bewildered by the mass of unsifted evidence and unhesitating assertion which met my eyes at every turn. ”

“ What sorry rogues make fortunes nowadays! It is more than likely that Rawlings, or whatever this trickster’s name was, like his own selections on this particular occasion, had never seen a race-course. Strange as this may seem, it is not at all improbable; for there are lots of men who live by the turf, and who are as conversant with pedigrees and performances of horses as can be, yet who know nothing beyond what they see on paper, and who, authorities on racing when in Fleet Street, would be quite nonplussed if taken to Newmarket among the horses whose names they know so well. ”