and Newcastle , Wakefield , Leeds , and Halifax ; and also to Salisbury , Blandford , Dorchester , Burput , Exmaster , Hunnington , and Exeter , Ockinton , Plimouth , and Cornwal ; let them repair to the George Inn, at Holborn Bridge, London , and thence they shall be in good Coaches with good Horses, upon every Monday , Wednesday , and Fridays , at and for reasonable Rates.
Among the advertisements which prevailed most extensively in those early times, may, as has been remarked, be ranked those of runaway servants, apprentices, and black boys. England at that time swarmed with negro or mulatto boys, which the wealthy used as pages, in imitation of the Italian nobility. They were either imported from the West Indies, or brought from the Peninsula. The first advertisement of a runaway black page we meet with is dated August 11, 1659, but in this instance the article is advertised as “lost,” like a dog, which is after all but natural, the boy being a chattel:—
A Negro-boy, about nine years of age, in a gray Searge suit, his hair cut close to his head, was lost on Tuesday last, August 9, at night, in St Nicholas Lane, London. If any one can give notice of him to Mr Tho. Barker, at the Sugar Loaf, in that Lane, they shall be well rewarded for their pains.
It is amusing to see, from this advertisement, that the wool of the negro found no grace in the eye of his Puritan master, who cropped the boy’s head as close as his own. Black boys continued in fashion for more than a century after, and were frequently offered for sale, by means of advertisements, in the same manner as slaves used to be, within