Punch (12.1847)

200

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Gentleman from Town (loq.) "Oh, if this is one of the Little Places Chahlet spoke of, I shall go back.

CURIOSITIES OF (ADVERTISING) LITERATURE.

he advertising literature of the day certainly
demands a Disraeli—the Elder—to embalm its
numerous curiosities. The Timet has, within
even the last week, teemed with some of the
choicest specimens of interesting and amusing
matter, describing the wants, the offers, and the
achievements of our fellow-creatures.

In the first place, we find that " a man and his
wife are wanted—the man to be acquainted with
the lineage and movements of the aristocracy,"
while the woman will be " required to clean the
offices." We need not remark on the dreadfully
ill-assorted match that is presumed to have been
made by the parties sought for in this advertise-
ment—a husband " acquainted with the lineage
and movements of the aristocracy," (and of
course, therefore, living intimately with them
in their lofty circle,) with a wife who " will be
required to clean the offices;" the man a con-
firmed and successful tuft-hunter—the woman
an active Bearcher after cobwebs.

There are so many badly-matched couples in the world, that we
should Dot be surprised if the man on intimate terms with the aristo-
cracy, and his charwoman of a wife, should be speedily forthcoming.
The husband's gay society out of doors is so perfectly compatible with
the domestic drudgery of the wife at home, and the sort of union so
often exists, that we are perhaps wrong in classing this case under the
head of Curiosities of Advertising Literature.

The next specimen, however, comes fairly under this denomination j
for it comprises the offer of a lady to dye hair permanently either
brown, light brown, auburn, or black, and to show her own hair as a
pattern of every one of these colours. This lady of the rainbow
tresses must indeed be an interesting phenomenon, with her beautifully-

variegated head of hair decked in parti-colours, like the dress of a
harlequin. There is something extraordinary in the devotion she shows
to her art, in cultivating half-a-dozen different patches of an equal
number of hues on her head, and being willing to exhibit the absurdity
as a specimen of her talents. Nothing but dire necessity can, we
fear, have suggested such a sacrifice. We should think that, in the
slack season, her exhibition of herself as the piebald lady, at sixpence
the head, would prove a considerable source of revenue.

The next literary curiosity, culled from the advertising columns, is
the announcement of the United Dentists' Tooth Powder. There is
something rare in the fact of the dentists having forgotten all profes
sional jealousy, in order to rally round one particular dentriflce. The
United Dentists are, we know, not by any means united on general
matters ; but here is a dentriflce which has provided them with a sort
of more than neutral ground, where they may be not simply forgetful
of hostility, but positively harmonious. Had the specific been a
mineral cement, we should not have wondered so much at its bringing
them together; but there is something astounding in the union effected
by mere Tooth Powder.

One more curiosity, and we have done. An auctioneering firm has
advertised the sale of the " library of a gentleman in good condition."
One naturally inquires what the condition of the gentleman can have
to do with the sale of his library. Perhaps the fact is stated to
show that the gentleman is not so out of condition—so thoroughly
done up—as to be forced to sell his library. Nevertheless, as the name
is not published, the caution appears somewhat superfluous.

Wall and Void.

One of the securities that was offered by England for the loan
advanced by the Empekob of Russia was Ireland. The Emperor
instantly declined the bargain upon any such terms, for he declared
with great warmth that it was preposterous to suppose there was trie
slightest security in Ireland.