Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/432

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

It could not have afforded not to throw the money away." 96 G . W . Holyoake recalls that at one time he wrote advertisements for a firm whom he persuaded that “ to tell the truth in them

would be the greatest novelty out.” 97 The editor of the Glasgow Herald writes ofmany advertisements refused from quack doctors , and baby farming, personals, and “ agony " advertisements. He gives an important side-light on the number and the dangerous

character of such advertisements in stating that the editing re quired the services not of one but of severalmen.98

When Arthur Tappan started the Journal of Commerce in 1827, he wished it to exert “ a wholesomemoral influence, abstaining

particularly from publishing immoral advertisements," 99 and when Lewis Tappan took over the paper the following year he announced that “ it will refuse to derive emolument from ad

vertisements that are at war no less with the political and com

mercial prosperity, than with the innocence, integrity, andmoral weal of the community,” and he exercised a censorship in regard to quack medicines.100 The American , started in Lowell, Massa

chusetts, in 1849, " published no advertisements demoralizing to the community or to the home." 101 Henry Ward Beecher signalized the beginning of his editorship of the Christian Union by shutting down " once and for all upon a large class of profitable business, in excluding medical advertisements and in ordering a strict censorship upon whatever might offend the taste or impose

upon the credulity of readers.” 102 96 Whitelaw Reid , American and English Studies, II, 221. The influence of the railway mania on advertising is best seen in the case

of the London Gazette that made large profits from its advertisements about 1835 " it made above 15,00ol a year by advertisements , and the whole of its working expenses did not amount to half that.” But “ its busiest time

was during the railway mania ,when all railway projects had to be advertised in the Gazette by a certain day, for otherwise Parliament would not recognize them . The ferment this caused is now inconceivable. As the limit of time approached , the advertisements increased , till, on one November day, the paper was enlarged to 583 pages ! It required nearly 150 stamps and was sold at something more than half- a -crown. ” — Cited from the Athenaeum , by J . C . Francis, John Francis, II, 239.

97 Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, I, 132.

98 A . Sinclair, Fifty Years of Newspaper Life, pp. 1o , II. 99 Life of Arthur Tappan , p . 91. 100 J. P . Thompson , Memoir of David Hale , pp. 48, 50 . 101 Mrs. W . S . Robinson, “Warrington ” Pen -Portraits, p . 44 . 102 Cited from John Howard , the publisher of the Christian Union , by A . Tassin , The Magazine in America, p . 275.