Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/237

 12 8. 1. MAR. 18, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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used to be rowed annually, as some readers may remember, between Putney and Mort- lake.

Since the advent of the halfpenny illus- trated dailies, their contents bills have borne a large reproduction of the leading picture in the paper. This led the other day to a poster headed "Air Raid in Kent," followed by a reproduction of an official photograph of a house wrecked several days before in the Midlands. The Kentish seaside towns visited by a Taube on the previous day protested against the implication that this picture was the result of the air raid on them, the damage being trifling in their case.

A curious chapter in the history of contents bills was the devotion of the licensed victuallers' venerable organ, The Morning Advertiser, to alliterative bills. It has always been their custom to place a number of items on their bills, and for nearly ten years it was their invariable rule to make the words in each line alliterative. The only one I can remember ran thus :

Balfours Both But

Arthur Admirable at Ardwick. Jabez jumped on in Jujury. I never heard why this quaint conceit was adopted, but I am informed that it was dropped because its inventor died and no member of the staff was found able to keep up the strain of constant alliteration.

A few years ago certain newspapers, of which The Daily Mail was the most notable, adopted the system of having contents bills 6 ft. high set in huge block letters in facsimile of their ordinary bills. These posters were stuck up early in the morning at special traffic points on hoardings. They were much used at by-elections, and though " war economy " has led to their reduction, some of them appeared in the recent Mile End by-election, being adopted by the newspapers which supported Mr. Pemberton- Billing, the " airman " candidate.

In recent years a controversy has broken out as to whether newsagents should be paid for exhibiting posters. The newspaper pub- lisher's view is that these bills are given to the newsagent to enable him to sell more newspapers, and thus to make more profit ; the newsagent's view is that he is asked to use the front of his shop as an advertisement hoarding, and ought to be paid by the traders whose wares he advertises. It is a nice problem, and it is still far from general settlement. R s> p ENGELLy>

Clapham Park, S.W.

Should not the newspaper edited by Bennett mentioned by MR. A. L. HUMPHREYS at the last reference be styled The Morning Herald of New York ?

Capt. Marryat in his ' Diary in America,. Part Second, has a chapter (vi.) on the ' News- paper Press,' p. 61 et seq. of Galignani's Paris edition, 1840, in which (p. 64) he says :

" The most remarkable newspaper for its obscenity, and total disregard for all decency and truth in its personal attacks, is the Morning Herald of New York, published by a person of the name of Bennett, and being published in so large a city, it affords a convincing proof with what impunity the most licentious attacks upon private characters are permitted. But Mr. Bennett is sui generis ; and demands particular notice .... His maxim appears to be this ' Money will find me everything in this world, and money I will have, at any risk, except that of my life, as, if I lost that, the money would be useless.' Acting upon this creed, he has lent his paper to the basest and most malignant purposes. . . .defaming and inventing lies against every honest man. . . . As may be supposed, he has been horse- whipped, kicked, trodden underfoot, and spat upon, and degraded in every possible way ; but all this he courts, because it brings money.... The day after the punishment, he publishes a full and par- ticular account of how many kicks, tweaks of the nose, or lashes he may have received .... Every one almost, who has a character, is afraid of him, and will purchase his silence, if they cannot his good-will....! myself, before I had been six weeks in the country, was attacked by this wretch, and, at the same time, the paper was sent to me with this small note on the margin : ' Send twenty dollars, and it shall be stopped.' ' I only wish you may get it,' said I to myself."

On p. 173 (chap, xiv.) Marryat again speaks of "The Morning Herald of New York," not The New York Herald.

It should be noted that the above concerns a period of all but eighty years ago. Marryat's sojourn in America, of nearly two years, began on May 4, 1837.

I should think that The New York Herald is now, and has been for many years, one of the best newspapers in the United States.

Earlier in his chapter on the * Newspapei Press ' Marry at writes :

" The New York papers are most of them very well conducted, and very well written. The New York Courier and Enquirer, by Colonel Webb ; the EveningfStar, by Noah ; the Albion, by Doctor Bartlett ; Spirit of the Times, and many others, which are too numerous to quote, are equal to many of the English newspapers. The best written paper in the States, and the happiest in its sarcasm, and wit, is the Louisville Gazette, conducted by Mr. Prentice, of Kentucky. . . .The New Orleans Picayune, by Kendall, is perhaps, after Prentice's, the most amusing."

ROBERT PIEBPOINT.