This advertisement is so well known that recently a revue bearing the title “La Maison n’est pas au Coin du Quai” was played at a well-known theatre, and in the recent version of “OrphÉe aux Enfers” at the GaÎtÉ, the “on rend l’argent” portion is made the peg for a joke by the Monarch of Hell. The following also persistently arrest the attention of the traveller: “Au Bon Diable,” “Eau Melisse des Carmes,” “Chocolat Ibled,” and “Old England British Tailors.” The “Piano Quatuor” is also everywhere typified by the picture of a gentleman with hideous long fingers and pointed nails stretching over the strings of four violins.

The theatres usually display their programmes on large columns specially constructed for the purpose, which are fixed about every two hundred yards along the principal Boulevards. As these bills are renewed nearly every day, this department alone must be very remunerative to the Government. No playbills are sold in the theatres, but many of the daily journals publish the programmes of all; and three papers, the Vert-Vert, the Orchestra, and the Entr’acte, are specially printed to serve as bills of the play. One peculiar circumstance connected with theatrical advertisements is worthy of notice. In each of those places of public convenience known to Parisians as “Les Colonnes Rambuteau,” some mysterious individual has for years pasted a little piece of paper announcing the drama at the Ambigu Comique and the principal performers therein. Here is an exact copy of the one appearing during the month of June of the present year (1874):—

For years some unknown person has thus maybe gratuitously advertised the house in question, and his identity is one of the mysteries of Paris. Two well-known Parisian journalists, piqued by the eccentricity of the advertisement, lay in wait one whole night and day for the purpose of discovering its author, but their effort was fruitless. While on the subject of these colonnes, we may note the fact that their exteriors are covered with advertisements, the most conspicuous among them being the bill of fare of the “DÎner de Rocher,” a three-franc ordinary on the Boulevard Montmartre. The interior announcements are not of a nature for publication, and in that respect resemble kindred establishments this side the Channel. Next in importance to the hoardings and “spectacle” columns are the kiosques, in which the newspaper trade of Paris is chiefly carried on. The front is open, with the paper stall before it; but the remaining sides are of coloured glass, and each square contains an advertisement painted or stained upon it, generally in large letters. At night the light in the interior gives the kiosque a very gay and festive appearance. There are various minor methods of attracting public attention practised by the Parisian traders. The managers of the Louvre and Pygmalion, establishments similar to our Shoolbred’s and Meeking’s, give to each of their customers an air balloon with the name of the establishment from which it is issued painted upon it. Thousands of these are constantly bobbing about along the principal thoroughfares. The tickets given to seat occupiers in the public gardens and parks are beautifully illuminated cards covered with trade announcements. Some of the restaurants give each of their lady-customers a fan in summer, which is prettily ornamented with advertisements. At Duval’s famous eating establishments the backs of the bills of fare are sold for a large sum to advertising contractors. It is calculated that this firm issues 30,000 cartes a day. Space will not allow us to enumerate the further thousand-and-one plans—some sensible, some silly—which the Parisians adopt for attracting public attention; we therefore pass on to the last and most important medium for advertisements—the Parisian newspapers. In French journals, as in some English, the rÉclame, or editorial puff, is eagerly sought after; and for unblushing effrontery in selling their pens to pushing tradesmen, we must yield the palm to our brother scribes across the water. “They order this matter better in France.” Only a short time since M. de Villemessant, the editor of Le Figaro, gave a delightful specimen of the art in his own columns. He commenced by relating the history of the Duke of Hamilton and the sheep’s wool left on the brambles. Then came a long description of the homes of the Highland shepherds, and their spinning wives. The English word “homespun” being thus introduced, the article wound up by advising les gentlemen franÇais to rush to a certain shop in Paris where homespun was sold, and be measured for suits. A few days after the article had been published, its author was sauntering along the Boulevards clad in a homespun suit of the latest cut and pattern.

We present a choice specimen of the rÉclame cut from the pages of the Parisian gommeux’s favourite journal:—

Here is another of these exquisite specimens of artistry in puffing. It is from La Vie Parisienne of a short time back:—

Besides writing up the goods of energetic and aspiring tradesmen, the French journalist is frequently employed by a third or fourth rate actress to write her into notoriety. To do this he carefully avoids any mention of her histrionic abilities; but whenever he gets an opportunity, he describes her dresses, her equipage, her petits soupers, and occasionally places in her mouth some clever repartee or daring joke. Once in vogue, a lady of this kind has obtained the object of her ambition, and many a queen of the demi-monde owes her success in the realms of guilty splendour to the constant puffing of some hireling scribe. Hireling though he be, the scribe is also an artist, and his work bears an immeasurably favourable comparison with that of his clumsy English rival; for he has rivals in England, and rÉclames are finding their way rapidly into the most pretentious of our papers. Hitherto they have succeeded in deceiving none so much as their waiters and those who pay for them; but there is yet hope. Occasionally the French rÉclame mania is worked up into a good joke, as in the following:—

Sometimes the advertisement is given in an indirect manner: thus the public read the following in the day’s paper:—

The next time the reader goes to the theatre the advertisement alluded to catches his eye, and the address is fixed in his memory.

The rÉclame is at present an important feature of French journalism. It generally pays all parties concerned in its manufacture, and its existence is therefore likely to continue for long. The reader has only to pick up Le Gaulois, Le Figaro, or any of the Parisian lighter papers, and he will be enabled to see for himself to what an extent commerce has infected the Gallic press.

Turning from the rÉclames to the advertisements proper, we find there are five distinct specimens of the latter, so far as style is concerned. Each one of these has its modifications, but the following samples will be found very near the mark. The first will serve a double purpose, as it seems to point out that despite the ridicule cast on English costumes by Parisian satirists, there are not a few who wear them, though they have every opportunity of appearing in the Frenchest of French fashions:—

The second specimen is intended for the ladies, who may believe what they like of the statement made about its salutary action, and its adding to the natural beauty:—

Our third refers to something which has been fashionable as long as there has been such a thing as fashion, and which is likely to continue till la mode itself has an end:—

Our fourth selection refers to a stomachic which is rather fashionable just now:—

And our fifth is the following:—

An ingenious method of obtaining notoriety, and one which has paid pretty well recently over some theatrical matters in this country, is to fall foul of the official censor. The announcement that “la Censure a interdit ‘Palotte’ dans les gares” has caused “Palotte,” a rather dirty novel, to be an immense success. Why it should be forbidden in the railway stations, and allowed everywhere else, we are not sufficiently behind the scenes to say.

We have now glanced hastily at the leading aspects of French advertising, and after remarking that Galignani and the Gazette des Etrangers are the great mediums for English and American advertisements in Paris, that a certain American manager who has a theatre in London advertises it and his angular histrionic wonder regularly in the former, and that the principal advertising contractors of Paris have made vast fortunes, we get fairly back to our original remark, that the whole system of advertising in Paris is characteristic of the Parisians—a strange mixture of neatness, effect, frivolity, and childishness. Who shall deny that these four words suit the character of the great mass of the people? The fact that the authorities reserve to themselves the white affiche is characteristic to a degree of French Governments, and the savage attack which the French journals made upon the letters of apartments, because their poor little notices “Chambre À louer” were exempted from the ten-centimes tax, was a fair specimen of the frivolous and vexatious spirit which animates the children of la Grande Nation. For their neatness they are proverbial; and any one walking through the streets of Paris cannot fail to notice the admirable order in which the various stations are kept. No rain-soaked bills peeling off, no mud-plashed announcements of pieces which have been withdrawn for weeks—all is neat and fresh, and corrected to date. 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 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.

The consideration of rÉclames, which are now regarded as so essentially French, has reminded us, not alone that they were fashionable, though under a humbler name, in this country many, many years ago, as we have already shown, but that they are again coming into fashion. But the “puff-pars” of old England—which may fairly be represented by those which emanated from the establishment of Rowland, the Kalydor man, in his palmy days of advertising—were always clumsy when compared with those rÉclames we have been studying, it being impossible, apparently, to make a British advertiser understand that an advertisement is more valuable in proportion as it looks less like what it really is. The cloven foot always shows forth under the wrapper of fine words; and when we say this, we do not refer to the paragraphs written in odonto or ointment establishments by young men at a pound a week, who are bound to put so many hard words in a line, and keep their productions within the compass of so many lines, whether syntax is agreeable or not; but to the friendly and more able notices which now and again find their way into some daily and weekly papers. The rÉclame, in its best form, is a highly-cultivated flower—an exotic, in fact—and is at present a little over the heads of the advertising public, who like to see plenty for money.

One paragraph which approaches much nearer the true rÉclame than most attempts, we stumbled across the other day. It is an attempt to convey to a wondering world how Perry Davis’s Pain Killer came to be used both internally and externally. By it we find that much internal discomfiture had been destroyed by the specific, when one day, in conducting some scientific exploration, its patentee became sadly burned. In his agony he threw the contents of the nearest bottle—which happened to contain Pain Killer—over the injured parts, and as much to his surprise as satisfaction, he became in a short time perfectly cured. Of a rather more ambitious kind is an attempt made by Messrs Piesse and Lubin in the same direction. It is quite unique, and deserves a place here. At all events we came upon it in a fashionable morning paper, and read some little way before noticing that we were deep in an advertisement:—

It may be as well to mention here that Messrs Piesse and Lubin claim to be the originators of the enigmatical form of advertising. It was they who started the “Opoponax” mystery, which aroused public curiosity at the time, and has been considerably imitated since. Localities are sometimes used in advertisements as typifying the quality of the articles advertised; Mayfair Sherry is the chief representative of this class, and we suppose that the district is named as evidence of high tone and elegant bottling. Still another kind of advertising is that adopted by Brinsmead, who seems to be a regular champion among pianoforte-makers, and who makes curious little extracts bracketed opposite the names of papers and celebrities that give him testimonials, throughout a long newspaper column, all about his patent check repeater-action gold medal pianofortes. Sir Julius Benedict, the Examiner, Brinley Richards, the Standard, and Sydney Smith are among many other men and papers quoted. We are not aware who Sydney Smith may be nowadays, but should hardly think the great wit and essayist who died thirty years ago could have known enough about Brinsmead’s pianos to enable him to say “their touch is absolute perfection.”

Notwithstanding all that has been written and said about the value of newspaper notices as distinguished from advertisements, there is no reasonable room for doubt that a representative of the general advertising class would far sooner see his shop paraded in a pantomime, or hear himself referred to by a low comedian, than be recipient of really valuable attention at the hands of a newspaper writer. There are, of course, exceptions, and these reap the reward their rivals despise. The elder Mathews was a victim to the rather illogical rage for that phase of theatrical advertisement to which we have just referred. Amongst the extraordinary effects of his popularity, were applications made under every kind of pretext, letters being sent to him from all sorts of professors and tradesmen about town. One man offered him snuff for himself and friends for ever, if he would only mention the name and shop of the manufacturer. Another promised him a perpetual polish for his boots upon the same terms. He was solicited to mention every sort of exhibition, and to puff all the new quack medicines. The wines sent to him to taste, though alleged to be of the finest quality, nevertheless required “a bush,” which was to be hung out nightly at his “house of entertainment.” Patent filters, wigs and waistcoats, boots and boothooks, “ventilating hats” and “bosom friends,” all gifts, used to stock Mathews’s lumber-room. An advertising dentist one day presented himself, offering to find Mathews’s whole family in new teeth, and draw all the old, if the comedian would only in return draw the new patent mineral masticators into notice. In fact, Mathews was so inundated with presents, that his cottage sometimes looked like a bazaar, and his wife had frequently occasion to exercise her ingenuity in contriving how to dispose of the generally useless articles forced upon their acceptance.

Though this was a great many years ago, things remain much the same, and such popular entertainers as Fred Maccabe, and patterers as J. L. Toole, could doubtless sell themselves for large sums in the interests of vocal advertising. Managers invariably avail themselves of the opportunity whenever a chance occurs, as it does now and again in realistic drama, and very frequently in pantomime. Actors are, though, not alone the admiration of the advertiser—they are by no means above making a shrewd bid for popularity themselves by means of the papers. It is not so very long ago that a tragedian, more distinguished in the provinces than in London, and anxious to meet that metropolitan recognition which he felt sure he deserved, gave a small rÉcherchÉ banquet to his early friends at a well-known house near Lincoln’s-Inn Fields. Those who were invited must have felt very much like Mr Twemlow used whenever he visited the Veneerings, and those who were in a condition to think when they came away must have felt puzzled to account for the fact that all Mr ——’s early friends had taken to the dramatic-critic, the leader-writer, or the editor line of business—all but one, a kind of literary tradesman, who, however, possibly paid his half for the privilege of being admitted into such splendid society on equal terms, and who had, moreover, made out the list of diners, written the invitations, and maybe provided some of the clean linen. We tell the story as it was told us by two of the invited early friends, who added, that until the night of the dinner they had never seen Mr —— off the stage.

Taking a long stride from London to a Chinese seaport, we come upon this choice sample of Flowery Land English:—

To those who are interested in a peculiarity of advertising unknown in this country, we present the following from the Berlinische Zeitung:—

Which informs us, under the head of Betrothal, that Minna Bock and Fritz Engelhardt beg to announce their betrothal, with compliments. The date is plain. Another announcement in the same paper, and under the same head, is this:—

Which means that Dr Goldscheider and his wife do themselves the honour of most humbly announcing the betrothal of their eldest daughter, Margaret, to Herr Richard Raab, of Magdeburg, Inspector of the Imperial Post. Then follow the signatures of bride and groom, and the whole winds up with the happy conjunction of the two towns, Stendal and Magdeburg.

From the Journal do Commercio of Rio de Janeiro, April 4, 1872, we take the following:—

Credulous persons, who believe that with the cessation of the war between the Northern and Southern States of America slavery went right out of existence, except amongst the most barbarous nations, may be astonished to discover that the foregoing, when turned into English, reads thus:—“Ran away from 297 Alfandega Street, the negro Mariano, a half-caste of ordinary stature, long visage, slight beard, has lost some front teeth, and has an ulcer in the lower jaw. He is accustomed to change his name, and is believed to be in the outskirts of Nitherohy. He has marks of flogging on his back. Whoever captures him, and brings him to the above address, will be rewarded, and persons are hereby cautioned against harbouring him.”

From the same paper we extract another announcement:—

Which means that Antonio Luiz Fernandez da Cunha and his wife, Donna Manoela Pereira Fernandes da Cunha, Leopoldino JosÉ da Cunha and his wife, Donna Balbina Alves Pereira da Cunha, invite their friends to accompany the funeral of their lamented son and grandson, the innocent Carlos, who will be buried to-day at half-past ten in the morning, in the Cemetery of St John the Baptist. The place of rendezvous concludes the melancholy announcement.

Funeral advertisements seem very popular in Rio, the following being extracted from among a large number of similar announcements in the Journal do Commercio:—

This is from Donna Joanna da Silva Maia da ConceiÇÃo and Procopio de Jesus, who cordially thank those friends that performed the charitable office of following to the grave the mortal remains of their very dear husband and godfather, Olegario da Silva. Those and others are again requested to attend the seventh-day mass, which is to be performed on the morrow, in the mother church of St Anna, at eight o’clock, for which attendance the advertisers will be very thankful. There are so many of these notices, all of which are evidently looked forward to with interest, that the reader cannot help thinking a particularly healthy season in Rio would be regarded as quite a public misfortune.

FINIS.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY
EDINBURGH AND LONDON

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BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CHATTO & WINDUS.