in the course of one year, and that a year not characterized by any great war to swell the ordinary volume of cable despatches.
In the case of daily papers sold at the minimum price, it is not less obvious that the costliness of news service renders advertising revenue indispensable, for although these less important journals spend less money, the price at which they are supplied to the news agents is very small in proportion to the cost of their production. If, however, this thought be pursued to its logical conclusion, the advertiser must admit that he in turn receives, from those among newspaper readers who purchase his wares, prices sufficiently high to cover the cost of his advertising. So that the reader is in the curious position of directly paying a certain price for his newspaper, receiving a newspaper fairly worth more than that price, while this price is supplemented by the indirect incidence of a sort of tax upon many of the commodities he consumes. On the other hand, a great part of the advertisements in a daily newspaper have themselves an interest and utility not less than that possessed by the news. The man who desires to hire a house turns to the classified lists which the newspaper publishes day after day, and servants and employers find one another by the same means. The theatrical announcements are so much a part of the news that even if a journal were not paid for their insertion they could not be altogether omitted without inconvenience to the reader. In the main, however, it is the advertiser who seeks the reader, not the reader who seeks the advertiser, and the care with which advertisements are prepared, and the certainty with which the success or failure of a trader may be traced to his skill or want of skill as an advertiser, show that the proper use of advertising is one of the most indispensable branches of commercial training.
Before discussing in detail the methods of advertising in periodical publications it may be well to complete, for the use of the general reader, a brief survey of the whole subject by examining the two other classes of advertisement. The most enthusiastic partisan of advertising Poster and sign advertisements.will admit that posters and similar devices are very generally regarded by the public as sources of annoyance. A bold headline or a conspicuous illustration in a newspaper advertisement may for a moment force itself upon the reader’s attention. In the French, and in some English newspapers, where an advertisement is often given the form of an item of news, the reader is distressed by the constant fear of being hoodwinked. He begins to read an account of a street accident, and finds at the end of the paragraph a puff of a panacea for bruises. The best English and American journals have refused to lend themselves to this sort of trickery, and in no one of the best journals printed in the English language will there be found an advertisement which is not so plainly differentiated from news matter that the reader may avoid it if he sees fit to do so. On the whole, then, newspaper advertisements ask, but do not compel attention. The whole theory of poster advertising is, on the other hand, one of tyranny. The advertiser who pays for space upon a hoarding or wall, although he may encourage a form of art, deliberately violates the wayfarer’s mind. A trade-mark or a catch-word presents itself when eye and thought are occupied with other subjects. Those who object to this class of advertisement assert, with some show of reason, that an advertisement has no more right to assault the eye in this fashion than to storm the ear by an inordinate din; and a man who came up behind another man in the street, placed his mouth close to the other’s ear, and bawled a recommendation of some brand of soap or tobacco, would be regarded as an intolerable disturber of public peace and comfort. Yet if the owner of a house sees fit to paint advertisements upon his walls, his exercise of the jealously guarded rights of private property may not lightly be disturbed. For the most part, both law and public opinion content themselves with restraining the worst excesses of the advertiser, leaving many sensitive persons to suffer. The National Society for Checking the Abuses of Public Advertising (known as Scapa), founded in 1893 in London, was organized for purposes which it describes as follows:—
The society aims at protecting the picturesque simplicity of rural and river scenery, and promoting a regard for dignity and propriety of aspect in towns—with especial reference to the abuses of spectacular advertising.
It seeks to procure legislation whereby local representative bodies would be enabled to exercise control, by means of by-laws framed with a view to enabling them, at any rate, to grant relief in cases of flagrant and acknowledged abuse.
It is believed that, when regulation is applied in cases where local conditions are peculiarly favourable, the advantage will be so apparent that, by force of imitation and competition, the enforcement of a reasonable standard will gradually become common. The degree of restraint will, of course, depend upon the varying requirements of different places and positions. No hard-and-fast rule is suggested; no particular class of advertisement is proscribed; certainly no general prohibition of posters on temporary hoardings is contemplated. Within the metropolitan area sky signs have already been prohibited, and it is hoped that some corresponding check will be placed on the multiplication of the field boards which so materially diminish the pleasure or comfort of railway journeys.
The society regards with favour the imposition of a moderate tax or duty for imperial or local purposes on exposed advertisements not coming within certain categories of obviously necessary notices. The difficulty of inducing a chancellor of the exchequer to move in a matter where revenue is not the primary consideration is not overlooked. But it is thought that any impost would materially reduce the volume of exposed advertisements, and would at once extinguish the most offensive and the most annoying class, i.e. the quack advertisements by the road sides and the bills stuck by unauthorized persons on trees, walls and palings.
Members are recommended to make it known that there exists an active repugnance to the present practice of advertising disfigurement, by giving preference, in private transactions, to makers and dealers who do not employ objectionable methods, and by avoiding, as far as possible, the purchase of wares which, in their individual opinion, are offensively puffed. Action on these lines is advised rather for its educational than for its immediately deterrent effect; although, in the case of many of the more expensive commodities, makers would undoubtedly be much influenced by the knowledge that they would lose, rather than gain, custom.
The foregoing proposals are based on the following estimate of the conditions of the problem. It is believed that the present licence causes discomfort or loss of enjoyment to many, and that, in the absence of authoritative restriction, it must grow far beyond its present limits; that beauty or propriety of aspect in town and country forms as real a part of the national wealth as any material product, and that to save these from impairment is a national interest; that the recent developments of vexatiously obtrusive advertising have not grown out of any necessities of honourable business, but are partly the result of a mere instinct of imitation, and partly are a morbid phase of competition by which both the consumers and the trade as a whole lose; that restriction as regards the size and positions of advertising notices would not be a hardship to those who want publicity—since all competitors would be treated alike, each would have the same relative prominence; that, as large sums of public money are expended on institutions intended to develop the finer taste, and on edifices of elaborate design, it must be held inconsistent with established public policy to permit the sensibilities thus imparted to be wounded, and architectural effect to be destroyed at the discretion of a limited class.
The influence of this society is to be seen in many of the restrictions which have been imposed upon advertisers since its work began. About a year after its foundation the London County Council abolished (under statutory powers obtained from Parliament) advertisements coming within the definition of sky-signs in the London Building Act of 1894. These specifications are as follows:—
“Sky sign”, means any word, letter, model, sign, device, or representation in the nature of an advertisement, announcement, or direction supported on or attached to any post, pole, standard, framework, or other support, wholly or in part upon, over, or above any building or structure, which, or any part of which, sky sign shall be visible against the sky from any point in any street or public way, and includes all and every part of any such post, pole, standard, framework, or other support. The expression “sky sign” shall also include any balloon, parachute, or similar device employed wholly or in part for the purposes of any advertisements or announcement on, over, or above any building, structure, or erection of any kind, or on or over any street or public way.
The act proceeds to exclude from its restrictions flagstaffs, weathercocks and any solid signs not rising more than 3 feet above the roof.
Another by-law of the London County Council, in great measure due to the observations made at coroners’ inquests, protects the public against the annoyances and the perils to
