CHAPTER V. NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING FORESHADOWED—ITS EARLIEST USE—HOUGHTON’S LESSONS.

endeavoured to systematically convince the world of the vast uses which might be made of this medium was Sir Roger L’Estrange. That intelligent speculator, in 1663, obtained an appointment to the new office of “Surveyor of the Imprimery and Printing Presses,” by which was granted to him the sole privilege of writing, printing, and publishing all narratives, advertisements, mercuries, &c. &c., besides all briefs for collections, playbills, quack-salvers’ bills, tickets, &c. &c. On the 1st of August 1663 appeared a paper published by him, under the name of the Intelligencer, and on the 24th of the same month the public were warned against the “petty cozenage” of some of the booksellers, who had persuaded their customers that they could not sell the paper under twopence a sheet, though it was sold to them at about a fourth part of that price. The first number of the Newes (which was also promoted by Sir Roger L’Estrange) appeared September 3, 1663, and, as we are told by Nicholls in his “Literary Anecdotes,” “contained more advertisements of importance than any previous paper.” Still, the benefit of the publicity which might be derived from advertising was so little understood by the trading community of the period, that after the Plague and the Great Fire this really valuable means of acquainting the public with new places of abode, the resumption of business, and the thousand and one changes incidental on such calamities, were almost entirely neglected. Though nearly the entire city had been burnt out, and the citizens must necessarily have entered new premises or erected extempore shops, yet hardly any announcements appear in the papers to acquaint the public of the new addresses. The London Gazette, October 11-15, 1666, offered its services, but hardly to any effect; little regard being paid to the