.jpg)
Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5
[Sneak Advertisement]
Of all mean things, few are so mean as the Sneak Advertisement— the paragraph that in the guise of news, or literature, or science, turns out to be a puff of Hyæna's Rotterdam Gin or Professor dePila's Scalp Exacerbator. In a recent example we noticed that all the proper nouns were kept down—that is to say, begun with a small letter—lest their prominence should prematurely betray the cheat. Formerly high prices were paid for these nuisances—now the wily advertiser scarcely pays for the cost of composition. For one of the latest the newspaper gets nothing, but actually pays a trifle for the privilege of giving it currency. In a column of professedly news correspondence— and paid for as such—from Melbourne, we were surprised to find an item from the north of the Tweed, a long way from the Victorian city. « Among the big things done in this world, » it began, « will be recorded the gigantic whisky blend made in Dumfries on the First of April last by Mr Sandie Auldfarrant, of Cannietoon, particulars of which reach us by home files just to hand. [Then follow statistics.] In these days of keen competition… the best article does not always come to the front, but the hall-mark of excellence must undoubtedly finally assert itself, and this, experience proves, Auldfarrant's whisky possesses. » The letter from which we quote appers in a large circle of country papers; and we do not know which to admire most—the meanness of the correspondent who gets paid at both ends and puts in so barefaced a puff in the guise of news, or the greenness of the journalist (?) who inserts a four-inch ad. in his news-columns for nothing. Verily the country editor is a guileless being!