would be simply ruinous. In fact, advertising is a most expensive luxury if not properly regulated, and a most valuable adjunct when coolness and calculation are brought to bear upon it as accessories.
The heavy duties originally imposed upon newspapers, both on them and their advertisements, were at first a considerable check to the number of notices appearing in them. For, in the first place, the high price of the papers narrowed the limits of their application; and, in the second, the extra charge on the advertisements made them above the reach of almost all but those who were themselves possessed of means, or whose business it was to pander to the unholy and libidinous desires of the wealthy. This, we fancy, will be extensively proved by a reference to the following pages; for while it is our endeavour to keep from this book all really objectionable items, we are desirous that it shall place before the reader a true picture of the times in which the advertisements appeared; and we are not to be checked in our duty by any false delicacy, or turned from the true course by any squeamishness, which, unfortunately for us in these days, but encourages the vices it attempts to ignore.
The stamp duty on newspapers was first imposed in 1713, and was one halfpenny for half a sheet or less, and one penny “if larger than half a sheet and not exceeding a whole sheet.” This duty was increased a halfpenny by an Act of Parliament, 30 Geo. II. c. 19; and by another Act, 16 Geo. III. c. 34, another halfpenny was added to the tax. This not being considered sufficient, a further addition of a halfpenny was made (29 Geo. III. c. 50), and in the thirty-seventh year of the same wise monarch’s reign (c. 90) three-halfpence more was all at once placed to the debit of newspaper readers, which brought the sum total of the duty up to fourpence. An Act of 6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 76 reduced this duty to one penny, with the proviso, however, that when the sheet contained 1550 superficial inches on either side, an extra halfpenny was to be paid, and when it contained 2295, an extra penny. An additional halfpenny was also charged on a supplement, which may be regarded, when the use of