Part 4
A _Tryal of Skill_ to be performed at His Majesty's Bear Garden in Hockley-in-the-Hole, on Thursday next, being the 9th instant, betwixt these following masters:--Edmund Button, master of the noble science of defence, _who hath lately cut down_ Mr. Hasgit and the Champion of the West, _and 4 besides_, and James Harris, an Herefordshire man, master of the noble science of defence, who has fought 98 prizes and never was worsted, to exercise the usual weapons, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon precisely.--_Postman_, July 4, 1701.
The savage character of the time may be judged from this public boast of Mr. Edmund Button that he had cut down six men with a murderous weapon. We question, however, if the age which could tolerate such ruffianism was not exceeded by the change which substituted the fist for the sword, and witnessed women entering the ring in the place of men. Some of the earliest notices of boxing-matches upon record, singularly enough, took place between combatants of the fair sex. In a public journal of 1722, for instance, we find the following gage of battle thrown down, and accepted:--
CHALLENGE.--I, Elizabeth Wilkinson, of Clerkenwell, having had some words with Hannah Hyfield, and requiring satisfaction, do invite her to meet me upon the stage, and box me for three guineas; each woman holding half-a-crown in each hand, and the first woman that drops the money to lose the battle.
ANSWER.--I, Hannah Hyfield, of Newgate Market, hearing of the resoluteness of Elizabeth Wilkinson, will not fail, _God willing_, to give her more blows than words, desiring home blows, and from her no favour: she may expect a good thumping!
The half-crowns in the hands was an ingenious device to prevent scratching! A still more characteristic specimen of one of these challenges to a fisticuff between two women is to be found in the _Daily Post_ of July 7th, 1728:--
At _Mr. Stokes' Amphitheatre_ in Islington Road, this present Monday, being the 7 of October, will be a complete Boxing Match by the two following Championesses:--Whereas I, Ann Field, of Stoke Newington, ass-driver, well known for my abilities in boxing in my own defence wherever it happened in my way, having been affronted by Mrs. Stokes, styled the European Championess, do fairly invite her to a trial of her best skill in Boxing for 10 pounds, fair rise and fall; and question not but to give her such proofs of my judgement that shall oblige her to acknowledge me Championess of the Stage, to the entire satisfaction of all my friends.
I, Elizabeth Stokes, of the City of London, have not fought in this way since I fought the famous boxing-woman of Billingsgate 29 minutes, and gained a complete victory (which is six years ago); but as the famous Stoke Newington ass-woman dares me to fight her for the 10 pounds, I do assure her I will not fail meeting her for the said sum, and doubt not that the blows which I shall present her with will be more difficult for her to digest than any she ever gave her asses.--_Note._ A man, known by the name of Rugged and Tuff, challenges the best man of Stoke Newington to fight him for one guinea to what sum they please to venture. N.B. Attendance will be given at one, and the encounter to begin at four precisely. There will be the diversion of Cudgel-playing as usual.
Other advertisements about this time relate to cock-matches, sometimes "to last the week," to bull-baiting, and, more cruel still, to dressing up mad bulls with fireworks, in order to worry them with dogs. The brutal tone of manners, which set in afresh with the Hanoverian succession, might be alone gathered from the so-called sporting advertisements of the day; and we now see that Hogarth, in his famous picture, had no need to, and probably did not, draw upon his imagination for the combination of horrid cruelties therein depicted.
The very same tone pervaded the gallantry of the day, and we print two advertisements, one of the time of Anne, and the other of the age we are now illustrating, in order to contrast their spirit. We give the more polished one precedence:--
A gentleman who, the twentieth instant, had the honour to conduct a lady out of a boat at Whitehall-stairs, desires to know where he may wait on her to disclose a matter of concern. A letter directed to Mr. Samuel Reeves, to be left with Mr. May, at the Golden Head, the upper end of New Southampton Street, Covent Garden.--_Tatler_, March 21, 1709.
A certain courtly style and air of good breeding pervades this advertisement, of which Sir Richard Steele himself need not have been ashamed; but what a falling-off is here!--
Whereas a young lady was at Covent Garden playhouse last Tuesday night, and received a blow with a square piece of wood on her breast; if the lady be single, and meet me on Sunday, at two o'clock, on the Mall in St. James's Park, or send a line directed for A. B., to Mr. Jones's, at the Sun Tavern in St. Paul's Churchyard, where and when I shall wait on her, to inform her of something very much to her advantage on honourable terms, her compliance will be a lasting pleasure to her most obedient servant.--_General Advertiser_, Feb. 8, 1748.
It would seem as though the beau had been forced to resort to a missile to make an impression, and then felt the necessity of stating that his intentions were "honourable," in order to secure an interview with his _innamorata_. Imagine, too, the open unblushing manner in which the assignation is attempted! We are far from saying that such matters are not managed now through the medium of advertisements, for we shall presently show they are, but in how much more carefully concealed a manner! The perfect contempt of public opinion, or rather the public acquiescence in such infringements of the moral law, which it exhibits, proves the general state of morality more than the infringements themselves, which obtain more or less at all times. Two of the causes which led to this low tone of manners with respect to women were doubtless the detestable profligacy of the courts of the two first Georges, and the very defective condition of the existing marriage law. William and Mary, and Anne, had, by their decorous, not to say frigid lives, redeemed the crown, and, in some measure, the aristocracy, from the vices of the Restoration. Crown, court, and quality, however, fell into a still worse slough on the accession of the Hanoverian king, who soiled afresh the rising tone of public life by his scandalous connection with the Duchess of Kendal and the Countess of Darlington; whilst his son and successor was absolutely abetted in his vicious courses by his own queen, who promoted his commerce with his two mistresses, the Countesses of Suffolk and Yarmouth. The degrading influence of the royal manners was well seconded by the condition of the law. Keith's chapel in May Fair, and that at the Fleet, were the Gretna Greens of the age, where children could get married at any time of the day or night for a couple of crowns. It was said at the time, that at the former chapel six thousand persons were annually married in this off-hand way; the youngest of the beautiful Miss Gunnings was wedded to the Duke of Hamilton, at twelve o'clock at night, with a ring off the bed-curtain, at this very "marriage-shop." The fruits of such unions may be imagined. The easy way in which the marriage bond was worn and broken through is clearly indicated by the advertisements which absolutely crowd the public journals from the accession of the House of Brunswick up to the time of the third George, of husbands warning the public not to trust their runaway wives.
We have referred, in an early part of this paper, to the taste for blackamoors, which set in the reign of Charles II., and went on increasing until the middle of the next century, at which time there must have been a very considerable population of negro servants in the metropolis. At first the picturesque natives of the East were pressed into the service of the nobility and gentry, and colour does not appear to have been a _sine quâ non_. Thus we have in the _London Gazette_ of 1688 the following hue-and-cry advertisement:--
Run away from his master, Captain St. Lo, the 21st instant, Obdelah Ealias Abraham, a Moor, swarthy complexion, short frizzled hair, a gold ring in his ear, in a black coat and blew breeches. He took with him a blew Turkish watch-gown, a Turkish suit of clothing that he used to wear about town, and several other things. Whoever brings him to Mr. Lozel's house in Green Street shall have one guinea for his charges.
The next advertisement we find also relates to what we must consider an East Indian. The notion of property in these boys seems to have been complete; their masters put their names upon their collars, as they did upon their setters or spaniels:--
A black boy, an Indian, about thirteen years old, run away the 8th instant from Putney, with a collar about his neck with this inscription: 'the Lady Bromfield's black in Lincoln's Inn Fields.' Whoever brings him to Sir Edward Bromfield's at Putney shall have a guinea reward.--_The London Gazette_, 1694.
The traffic in African blacks, which commenced towards the end of the seventeenth century, seems to have displaced these eastern servitors towards the end of the century, for henceforth the word negro, blackamoor, or black boy, is invariably used. No doubt the fashion for these negroes and other coloured attendants was derived from the Venetian Republic, the intercourse of whose merchants with Africa and India naturally led to their introduction. Titian and other great painters of his school continually introduced them in their pictures, and our own great bard has for ever associated the Moor with the City in the Sea. In England the negro boys appear to have been considered as much articles of sale as they would have been in the slave-market at Constantinople. In the _Tatler_ of 1709 we find one offered to the public in the following terms:--
A black boy, twelve years of age, fit to wait on a gentleman, to be disposed of at Denis's Coffee-house in Finch Lane, near the Royal Exchange.
Again, in the _Daily Journal_ of September 28th, 1728, we light upon another:--
To be sold, a negro boy, aged eleven years. Enquire of the Virginia Coffee-house in Threadneedle Street, behind the Royal Exchange.
These were the overflowings of that infamous traffic in negroes, commenced by Sir John Hawkins in the year 1680, which tore from their homes, and transferred to Jamaica alone, no less than 910,000 Africans between that time and the year 1786, when the slave-trade was abolished.
We have brought the reader up to the date of the final battle which extinguished the hopes of the Stuarts and settled the line of Brunswick firmly on the throne. The year 1745 witnessed the commencement of the _General Advertiser_, the title of which indicates the purpose to which it was dedicated. This paper was the first successful attempt to depend for support upon the advertisements it contained, thereby creating a new era in the newspaper press. From the very outset its columns were filled with them, between fifty and sixty, regularly classified and separated by rules, appearing in each publication; in fact, the advertising page put on for the first time a modern look. The departure of ships is constantly notified, and the engravings of these old high-pooped vessels sail in even line down the column. Trading matters have at last got the upper hand. You see "a pair of leather bags," "a scarlet laced-coat," "a sword," still inquired after; and theatres make a show, for this was the dawning of the age of Foote, Macklin, Garrick, and most of the other great players of the last century; but, comparatively speaking, the gaieties and follies of the town ceased gradually from this time to proclaim themselves through the medium of advertisements. The great earthquake at Lisbon so frightened the people, that masquerades were prohibited by law, and the puppet-shows, the rope-dancing, the china-auctions, and public breakfasts henceforth grow scarcer and scarcer as the Ladies Betty and Sally, who inaugurated them, withdrew by degrees, withered, faded, and patched, from the scene.
The only signs of the political tendencies of the time to be gathered from the sources we are pursuing, are the party dinners, announcements of which are now and then to be met with as follows:--
To the Joyous.--The Bloods are desired to meet together at the house known by the name of the Sir Hugh Middleton, near Saddler's Wells, Islington, which Mr. Skeggs has procured for that day for the better entertainment of those Gentlemen who agreed to meet at his own house. Dinner will be on the Table punctually at two o'clock.--_General Advertiser_, Jan. 13, 1748.
Or the following still more characteristic example from the same paper of April 12:--
Half-Moon Tavern, Cheapside.--Saturday next, the 16 of April, being the anniversary of the Glorious Battle of Colloden, the Stars will assemble in the Moon at Six in the evening. Therefore the Choice Spirits are desired to make their appearance and fill up the joy.--ENDYMION.
Within five-and-twenty years from this date most of the existing morning journals were established, and their advertising columns put on a guise closely resembling that which they now present. We need not therefore pursue our deep trenching into the old subsoil in order to turn up long-buried evidences of manners and fashions, for they have ceased to appear, either fossil or historical; we therefore boldly leap the gulf that intervenes between these old days and the present.
The early part of the present century saw the commencement of that liberal and systematic plan of advertising which marks the complete era in the art. Princely ideas by degrees took possession of the trading mind as to the value of this new agent in extending their business transactions. Packwood, some thirty years ago, led the way by impressing his razor-strop indelibly on the mind of every bearded member of the empire. Like other great potentates he boasted a laureate in his pay, and every one remembers the reply made to the individuals curious to know who drew up his advertisements: "La, sir, we keeps a poet!"
By universal consent, however, the world has accorded to the late George Robins the palm in this style of commercial puffing. His advertisements were really artistically written. Like Martin, he had the power of investing every landscape and building he touched with an importance and majesty not attainable by meaner hands. He did perhaps go beyond the yielding line of even poetical license, when he described one portion of a paradise he was about to submit to public competition as adorned, among other charms, with a "hanging wood," which the astonished purchaser found out meant nothing more than an old gallows. But then he redeemed slight manoeuvres of this kind by touches which really displayed a genius for puffing. On one occasion he had made the beauties of an estate so enchanting, that he found it necessary to blur it by a fault or two, lest it should prove too bright and good "for human nature's daily food." "But there are two drawbacks to the property," sighed out this Hafiz of the Mart, "the litter of the rose-leaves and the noise of the nightingales!" Certainly the force of exquisite puffing could no further go, and when he died the poetry of advertising departed. Others, such as Charles Wright of Champagne celebrity, have attempted to strike the strings; and Moses does, we believe, veritably keep a poet; but none of them have been able to rival George the Great, and we yawn as we read sonnets which end in the invariable "mart," or acrostics which refer to Hyam and Co.'s superior vests. Twenty years ago some of the daily newspapers admitted illustrated advertisements into their columns; now it would be fatal to any of them to do so. Nevertheless, they are by far the most effective of their class, as they call in the aid of another sense to express their meaning. All but the minors of the present generation must remember George Cruikshank's exquisite woodcut of the astonished cat viewing herself in the polished Hessian, which made the fortune of Warren. But in those days tradesmen only tried their wings for the flight. It was left to the present time to prove what unlimited confidence in the power of the advertisement will effect, and a short list of the sums _annually_ spent in this item by some of the most adventurous dealers will perhaps startle our readers.
"Professor" Holloway, Pills, etc. £30,000 Moses and Son 10,000 Rowland and Co. (Macassar oil, &c.) 10,000 Dr. De Jongh (cod-liver oil) 10,000 Heal and Sons (bedsteads and bedding) 6,000 Nicholls (tailor) 4,500
It does seem indeed incredible that one house should expend upon the mere advertising of quack pills and ointment a sum equal to the entire revenue of many a German principality. Can it possibly pay? asks the astonished reader. Let the increasing avenue of assistants, to be seen "from morn to dewy eve" wrapping up pills in the "professor's" establishment within the shadow of Temple Bar, supply the answer.[2] Vastly as the press of this country has expanded of late years, it has proved insufficient to contain within its limits the rapid current of puffing which has set in. Advertisements now overflow into our omnibuses, our cabs, our railway carriages, and our steamboats. Madame Tussaud pays 90_l._ monthly to the Atlas Omnibus Company alone for the privilege of posting her bills in their vehicles. They are inked upon the pavement, painted in large letters under the arches of the bridges and on every dead wall. Lloyd's weekly newspaper is stamped on the "full Guelph cheek" of the plebeian penny; the emissaries of Moses shower perfect libraries through the windows of the carriages which ply from the railway stations; and, as a crowning fact, Thackeray, in his "Journey from Cornhill to Cairo," tells us that Warren's blacking is painted up over an obliterated inscription to Psammetichus on Pompey's Pillar!
Having shown the reader the slow growth of the advertising column; having climbed, like "Jack in the Bean-stalk," from its humble root in the days of the Commonwealth up its still increasing stem in the succeeding hundred years, we now come upon its worthy flower in the shape of the sixteen-paged _Times_ of the present day. Spread open its broad leaves, and behold the greatest marvel of the age--the microcosm in type. Who can recognize in its ample surface, which reflects like some camera-obscura the wants, the wishes, the hopes, and the fears of this great city, the news-book of the Cromwellian times with its leash of advertisements? Herein we see how fierce is the struggle of two millions and a half of people for dear existence. Every advertisement writhes and fights with its neighbour, and every phase of society, brilliant, broken, or dim, is reflected in this battle-field of life. Let us tell off the rank and file of this army of announcements. On the 24th of May, 1855, the _Times_, in its usual sixteen-paged paper, contained the incredible number of 2,575 advertisements. Amazing as this total appears, we only arrive at its full significance by analyzing the vast array. Then, indeed, we feel what an important power is the great British publie. Of old the antechambers of the noble were thronged with poets, artists, publishers, tradesmen, and dependants of all kinds, seeking for the droppings of their favour; but what lordly antechamber ever presented such a crew of place-hunters, servitors, literary and scientific men, schemers, and shopkeepers as daily offer their services to the humblest individual who can spare a penny for an hour's perusal of the _Times_? Let us take this paper of the 24th of May and examine the crowd of persons and things which cry aloud through its pages, each attempting to make its voice heard above the other. Here we see a noble fleet of ships, 129 in number, chartered for the regions of gold, for America, for India, for Africa--for every port, in fact, where cupidity, duty, or affection holds out an attraction for the British race. Another column wearies the eye with its interminable line of "Wants." Here in long and anxious row we see the modern "mop" or statute-fair for hiring; 429 servants of all grades, from the genteel lady's-maid or the "thorough cook," who will only condescend to accept service where two footmen are kept, to the humble scullery-maid, on that day passed their claims before us for inspection. Another column is noisy with auctioneers; 136 of whom notify their intention of poising their impatient hammers when we have favoured them with our company. Here we see a crowd of booksellers offering, hot from the press, 195 new volumes, many of which, we are assured by the appended critique, "should find a place in every gentleman's library." There are 378 houses, shops, and establishments presented to us to select from; and 144 lodging-house keepers, "ladies having houses larger than they require," and medical men who own "retreats," press forward with genteel offers of board and lodging. Education pursues her claims by the hands of no less than 144 preceptors, male and female; whilst the hair, the skin, the feet, the teeth, and the inward man are offered the kind attention of thirty-six professors who possess infallible remedies for all the ills that flesh is heir to. The remainder is made up of the miscellaneous cries of tradesmen, whose voices rise from every portion of the page like the shouting of chapmen from a fair. In the midst of all this struggle for gold, place, and position, which goes on every day in this wonderful publication, outcries from the very depths of the heart, passionate tears, bursts of indignation, and heartrending appeals, startle one as they issue from the second column of its front page. Here the father sees his prodigal son afar off and falls upon his neck; the heartbroken mother implores her runaway child to return; or the abandoned wife searches through the world for her mate. It is strange how, when the eye is saturated with the thirst after mammon exhibited by the rest of the broadsheet, the heart becomes touched by these plaintive but searching utterances, a few of which we reproduce:--
The one-winged Dove must die unless the Crane returns to be a shield against her enemies.--_Times_ of 1850.
Or here is another which moves still more:--
B. J. C.--How more than cruel not to write. Take pity on such patient silence.--_Times_, 1850.
The most ghastly advertisement which perhaps ever appeared in a public journal we copy from this paper of the year 1845. It is either a threat to inter a wrong body in the "family vault," or an address to a dead man:--
To the Party who Posts His Letters in Prince's Street, Leicester Square.--Your family is now in a state of excitement unbearable. Your attention is called to an advertisement in Wednesday's _Morning Advertiser_, headed, "A body found drowned at Deptford." After your avowal to your friend as to what you might do, he has been to see the decomposed remains, accompanied by others. The features are gone; but there are marks on the arm; so that, unless they hear from you to-day, it will satisfy them that the remains are those of their misguided relative, and steps will be directly taken to place them in the family vault, as they cannot bear the idea of a pauper's funeral.