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THE ATL ANTI AN
HAD A REASON.
Belle: I understand you bought a
gold brick t
Harry: Had to. It was the only way
I could get my name in print.
THE APOTHEOSIS OF
CONCEIT.
‘ ‘ Why does Smartley look so glum and
disappointed t”
‘ ‘ He has just heard the adage, * Death
loves a shining mark,’ and he can’t un
derstand why he has escaped so long.”
AN ADVANCED SCHOLAR.
Minister—•* ‘ So you are going to school
now, are you, Bobby t”
Bobby (aged six)—‘‘Yes, sir.”
Minister—‘‘Spell kitten for me.”
Bobby—‘ ‘ Oh, I’m further advanced
than that. Try me on ait.”
TECHNICAL DEFENSE.
‘‘Sam Johnson, you’ve been fightin’
agin. You’se lost two of yo’ front
teeth.’’
‘‘No, I ain’t, mammy, honest I’se
got ’em in me pocket.”—Life.
WIFEY’S TROUBLE.
‘‘What is the trouble, wifeyt”
‘‘Nothing.”
‘‘Yes, there is. What are you crying
about, something that happened at home
or something that happened in a novel t”
—Kansas City Journal.
‘‘This is a world of change.”
‘‘Yes, and, by the way, have you got
any with yout”—Boston Transcirpt
TASTE FOR CUISINE.
(From Life)
First Cannibal: “Don’t you think
that last gentlemen had excellent taste
in clothesf”
Second Cannibal: “I can’t Bay. I
didn’t eat the clothes.”
AN ALARMING SYMPTOM.
“I’m worried about my boy.”
“What’s the matter with himt”
“When I left homo yesterday morn
ing I told him to clean up our lawn, and
when I got home last evening I found
that he had done it.”—Pittsburg Post.
HOW HE MANAGED IT.
“I was in an awkward predicament
yesterday morning,” said a husband to
another.
“How was that!”
“Why, I came home late, and my wife
heard me and said, ‘John, what time is
itt’ and I said, ‘Only twelve, my dear,’
and just then that cuckoo clock sang out
three times.”
“What did youdof”
‘ * Why, I just had to stand there and
cuckoo nine times more.”
THE POLITICAL GYRO
SCOPE.
(From the Boston Traveler)
Wonder how many more “pivotal
States” there will bet
She—Mamma thinks you are perfect
ly lovely.
He—Yes; but what does your father
think f
She—He thinks mamma has gone daf
fy.—Philadelphia Telegram.
THE ECONOMICS OF AD
VERTISING.
This is pre-eminently the age of ad
vertising. Publicity is the watchword of
the hour. The man who does not adver
tise is foreordained to failure. People
have become so habituated to the prac
tices of the press agent that they cannot
discern merit in any thing unless it is
dinned into their ears with a trumpet
blast. The range and complexity that
the business of advertising has attained
may be appreciated through a reading of
the program of the convention of the
Associated Advertising Clubs, now in
session.
There has been a good deal of loose
talk about the waste of advertising. Many
who discuss this subject fail to discrim
inate between the legitimate advertising
that performs a useful function by in
forming the public concerning the merits
of commodities and the wildcat advertis
ing that is designed to exploit consumers
and over-reach competitors. The former
might be termed commercial, and the
latter competitive advertising. A certain
amount of commercial advertising is a
necessary part of the expenses of dis
tribution, and is in no sense economically
wasteful. Moreover, the fact should not
be overlooked that even competitive ad
vertising brings certain incidental gains
that help to offset the loss that it en
tails. The development of this advertis
ing has given us the penny newspaper,
the ten or fifteen cent magazine and the
five-cent weekly. These good agencies of
popular instruction and entertainment
are literally a by-product of competitive
advertising.
But where all proper allowance has
been made on this score, it remains true
that there is a large element of waste in
modern advertising. Here, indeed, is one
considerable factor in the advance of
prices in recent years. Prof. J. C.
Schwab, of Yale University, in an article
published several years ago in the Yale
Review, said: “Modern industrial con
ditions have radically changed the char
acter of advertising and the part it plays
in the modern economy of a people. To
advertise is no longer strictly synony
mous with to inform. Much of the ad
vertising of today, especially in the daily
newspapers, voices the rivalry of sellers
of identical goods. Knowledge of the
character and quality of these goods is
nowadays obtained by the buying public
through other means, and the advertise
ments are merely intended to draw the
buyer from tradesman A to tradesman B,
or vice versa.”
That such advertising contributes to
the rise in prices and hence to the in
crease of the cost of living, cannot be
questioned. Not only the novelties of
commerce but also the necessities of life
feel its baneful influence. One of the
hopeful signs of the times is the ten
dency of progressive business men and
their publicity experts to abandon the
piratical style of advertising and to adopt
saner methods.
It is denied in some quarters that ex
penditure for advertising increases prices.
This view was stated in a communication
to the recent Massachusetts Commission
on the Cost of Living from the editor of
a leading advertising journal, as fol
lows:
“At first glance, advertising is usually
taken by the layman to represent added
cost, which the consumer pays through
higher* prices. In some few cases this
may be so, but it is never so in well-
organized modern establishments, where
advertising is used as an efficient aco-
nomic force. Advertising is distribution
expense, and is supplanting the long
standing distribution expense of immense
sales staffs and elaborate expense ac
counts. People naturally take the cost of
travelling salesmen, branch organizations
and all complicated and expensive ma
chinery of sales as a perfectly legitimate
and necessary expense. So it has been,
until advertising has supplanted it, large
ly for the very simple and naturally
beneficial reason that it decreases distri
bution expense. Salesmen do not have to
make one-third the number of trips they
used to make, nor do they have to spend
a lot of money for dinners, entertain
ments and other things to persuade and
even bribe dealers and jobbers to buy
their brand of goods. They now use the
economical means .of printers ’ ink to talk
directly to the consumer, so that they can
demand, not beg or bribe the dealer to
handle their goods. Furthermore, ad
vertising is very rapidly resulting in
cutting out the jobber and his middle
profit. Thousands of manufacturers are
now selling direct to dealers. If you take
such famous examples as Ivory soap and
Baker’s chocolate, and measure the
amount in quality of goods they give for
their price, it can be readily shown how
those who do not advertise do not give
one bit more quantity or quality than
those who advertise. As a matter of
fact, it can be demonstrated by any
householder going into a store. She will
get a far better quality and quantity of
canned goods and a score of other lines
of goods for her money than if she buys
the unadvertised brand, on which the
dealer makes more profit, but which is
considerably lower in quality.”
It is undoubtedly true that the devel
opment of advertising has eliminated or
reduced certain other expenses of dis
tribution. It is also true that many of
the advertised products are of excellent
quality, adding appreciably to the health,
convenience and comfort of existence.
Moreover, in the case of an individual
concern, advertising may by enlarging its
sales make possible some reduction in
prices. Undoubtedly advertising is a pay
ing proposition, from the point of view
of the individual business man, or it
never could have been extended to its
present proportions. Advertising, fur
thermore, has given us, as a by-product,
the penny newspaper and the cheap mag
azine and weekly. But to recognize all
these benefits need not obscure the fact
that the consumer does pay the bill for
advertising, and that the bill has grown
to enormous size in recent years. Com
petitive advertising has been greatly over
done. There is unquestionably a vast
deal of waste involved in much of the
present-day advertising. The reduction
of waste in this field would help to bring
prices back to a lower level.
JUST ONE VERSE.
“Oh, Arthur, do look at this hat; it’s
a perfect poem.”