following emanates:—
There is, after all, not much opportunity for the display of novelty in advertisements nowadays; but a merchant in Newark, New York State, succeeded very well by leaving his column entirely blank with the exception of this note, in very small type, at the bottom: “This space was sold to A. E. Brennan and Co., but as their business is sufficiently brisk already they decline to use it.” This anecdote in its progress has been related of most large houses in or about New York and Boston, but Brennan was the man who gave rise to it. Quite as business-like, and rather more cynical, was the Ohio tradesman who, in large print, gave the following forth: “Ministers of the Gospel supplied with goods at cost, if they agree to mention the fact to their congregations.” And though the next is a purely private communication, the author of it was evidently a born advertiser: “If the party who took a fancy to my overcoat was influenced by the inclemency of the weather, all right; but if by commercial considerations, I am ready to negotiate for its return.” In an advertisement headed “Full-dress funeral,” which appears in a Philadelphia paper, is the intimation that “all the gentlemen friends of the late Mr Smith desirous of participating in the funeral will appear in full-dress suit and white gloves at Happy Hall, at nine o’clock a.m. on Friday morning, Jan. 29, and proceed from thence in a body to the house of the deceased.” This peculiarity of a.m. in the morning reminds us of the announcement on a bridge at Denver, Colorado, which states that “no vehicle drawn by more than one animal is allowed to cross this bridge in opposite directions at the same time;” though our intention, while touching on funerals, was to