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20 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.”