announcements. It may seem that this state of affairs cannot possibly continue long; but whatever theorists may make of it, we can speak with confidence of more than six papers which to our knowledge have possessed no buyers whatever for more than six years, yet their proprietors get good livings out of them—better, perhaps, than they would if sale and not swindle was the reason of their being—and calculate on continuing this state of things for their time at all events. After them the deluge may come as soon as it likes. We remember quite well an office in which six of these newspapers were printed—that is, supposed to be printed, for with the exception of an alteration of title and a rearrangement of columns, and with, very rarely, the substitution of a new leading article for an old one, these six newspapers were all one and the same to the printers. Now, of course, had there been any chance of one man buying two copies of this instrument of robbery under any two of its distinct names, the swindle would have run some risk of being exposed; but so far as we could discover, there was no desire ever shown to buy even one, the circulation being exclusively among the advertisers. A very small circulation which finds its way in any particular direction may often be far more useful to one who wishes his notice to travel that way than would the largest circulation in the world; but the intensest of optimists could hardly discern any likelihood of benefit in the system just noticed.
Still another kind of advertisement swindle—still more distinct from the general run of swindles—is that by which certain ambitious persons try to obtain a spurious notoriety. Their desire is in no way connected with trade, though as it has in its effect the passing off of inferior wares upon