however, that these journals invariably did one of two things. They either got a price fixed on themselves, or died. It is hard to make advertisers believe that it is worth while paying for a notice in a paper which is itself not worth paying for, and no arguments as to increased circulation seem to have any effect.
Parisian advertisements form an item worthy of attention here. Within the past few years a great change has taken place in the system of advertising as known in the capital of France—in fact, as known in all the chief towns of the empire, kingdom, republic—whichever our readers like best or consider the most correct word. Between twenty-five and thirty years ago advertisements were charged at very high rates in the Paris papers, and there were comparatively few of them. The proprietors of journals did not themselves deal with the advertisers, but farmed out their columns at so much a year to advertising establishments or agencies. This was both convenient for the papers and profitable for the agencies. The rates they fixed for advertising in some of the most prominent journals were—Presse, one franc per line for each insertion; Siècle, one franc fifty centimes per line each insertion for four