Away
back more than half a century ago, some of the enterprising merchants of
Hamilton were liberal advertisers, and believing that the more prominent the
advertisements, the more benefit they could derive, they had them set in double
column, with large display type. The readers of the Spectator did not take
kindly to what they called the disfigurements of their favorite journal, so
remonstrances went pouring in to the editor Mr. Smiley, and even threats were made
that if the obnoxious double column ads were not dropped out, there would be a
material falling off in the subscription list. The merchants who wanted the
double column ads learned from this tempest in a tea pot that the subscribers
were not only reading their display ads, but from the increase in the number of
their customers, they were having telling effects. The confrontation between
the advertiser and the reader became so warm that Mr. Smiley was driven to his
wit’s end to harmonize both. As a compromise, the advertisements were limited
to double columns of three inches in length, and two dry goods firms told the
Spectator readers that they had to sell in as brief a manner as possible in
order to get a visible pica line as an eye catcher! The firms were McKeand,
Bell and Co., and James W. Inman. The other firms were too timid to go more
than the single column width for fear of arousing a spirit of animosity in the
kickers. The double column merchants declared they would not advertise unless
they could get the space they wanted; and the readers threatened to bestow
their patronage on the Gazette or The Journal and Express. Mr. Smiley knew that
if his large circulation – which was not more than 1,000 – was cut down and
many subscribers transferred their support to one of the other papers, he would
lose his advertisers. It was the same half a century ago as it is now, the
newspaper with the largest circulation got the cream of commercial
advertisement. This accounts for the great demand made today on the advertising
columns of the Spectator. The merchants know it has the largest circulation;
and that the paper goes into thousands of families in Hamilton where its
esteemed contemporaries are unknown. To get back to the old-time kickers, Mr.
Smiley was betwixt the devil and the deep sea; but, finally, this got so hot
that to appease the wrath of hi subscribers, he published a notice that after a
certain date, no more double column ads would be allowed to disfigure the pages
of the Spectator, and he stuck to it for several years. The merchants who had
been using double columns gracefully consented to help Mr. Smiley out of his
dilemma, and in the next issue – the Spectator was only published semi-weekly
then – both of them had single column ads and more space.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Merchants nowadays are not satisfied
with double columns; they want a quarter, a half, or a whole page, and every
line tells the story to the buyer of the place to go for a certain line of
goods. In the old days a merchant could contract for a small space in the paper
by the year. In the spring he could announce goods suitable for that season,
and the same ad would run for weeks till it was time to talk up summer goods,
and so on for fall and winter, making about four changes in the paper,
excepting that now and then the spirit would move them to make an extra strike
at Christmas. To look over a copy of the Spectator of a half century ago, one
could almost get a complete directory of the business men of Hamilton. Rarely
did one try to hide his hat under a bushel. The lawyers and doctors did not
think it unprofessional to tender their services through advertising columns;
nowadays it is considered unprofessional to put an ad in the paper, but the
professional gentlemen are always eager to get their names connected with some
case that may bring them prestige. Dr. Sawbone would deem it unprofessional to
advertise that he is ready to cut open all customers and remove their vermiform
appendix with neatness and dispatch, but when he performs some skillful
operation in surgery, or has been successful in bringing a patient through a
severe case of typhoid, he is ready to tell his story to a newspaper reporter,
and his eyes glisten with pleasure when he reads how neatly the young man has
written it up.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Look carefully through the pages of
the Spectator from now on till Christmas, and there you will see how the
merchants of the present day do things. If the old readers were to return to
this world and see the display ads they would certainly never get over the
shock when only two little ones raised such a commotion half a century ago. The
men who set the ads must be artists, else they never diversify the display, giving
each ad an individuality unknown in the days when there were only a few sizes
of clarendon and gothics and full face for the printer to work into shape.
However, the papers always looked neat in the old days of single column ads and
only one headline to each reading article. The old-time editor was a holy
terror in emphasizing his meaning with small caps and italics. All this passed
away with the introduction of the linotype, and no matter how bitter an editor
wants to make his articles, one would never know his real feelings as now
uttering in mild-faced roman type. When Robert Smiley, of the Spectator, and
Solo9mon Brega, of the Journal, got to splattering each other with printer’s
ink, how the italics would fly. H. B. Bull, the editor of the Gazette, was a
mild-mannered gentleman who could never be aroused into any journalistic fits
of passion, and the result was that The Gazette, after years of struggling
against fate, passed in its checks. The editor of the Journal got a government
job and the paper was merged into the Banner, which later became the Times. Mr.
Smiley laid deep the foundation for the Spectator. He came to Hamilton in 1846,
with a Washington hand press and a few fonts of type, started a semi-weekly,
which became a daily early in the forties. Fortune smiled upon him from the
first, and when he died in 1855, he left a prosperous printing house with steam
presses and all the modern type and machinery of the day. He owned the building
on the corner of Main and Hughson streets and built “Smiley’s Castle,” now
occupied by T. H. Pratt. In less than ten years, he amassed what was considered
a competence in those days when men and women lived frugally, and $25,ooo to
$30,000 was quite a fortune.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Hamilton cemetery was originally
owned by the Church of England – that was when that church ruled in Upper
Canada, as the Catholic church ruled in Lower Canada. It was the days of clergy
reserves and glebe ands, when Presbyterians and Methodists also slipped into
the public treasury for slices of the fat. On the evening of July 10, 1848, the
council, at the close of a long and tortuous session, finally passed a resolution
for the purchase of the burial ground from the church wardens, the condition
beiong that Sir Allan Macnab, who had become the nominal owner, without
purchase, of 46 acres of what was known as the Ordinance reserve, adjoining the
cemetery, should transfer his license of occupation to the city. Sir Allan also
had control of an additional portion of the reserve, and this the council
instructed the mayor to secure possession of. The population was small in 1848,
and nearly every church had its own graveyard, so that the number of
internments in the new cemetery did not began to make much of a showing till
the cholera broke out in 1854. From that time on down to the present rarely has
a day passed that the endless procession has not been moving out York street.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The tavern keepers in the old days had
a cheerful way about them when inviting customers to partake of their
hospitality. Dennis Nelligan had a tavern on the court house square early in the
forties to which he gave the title of the Munster Hotel, probably in honor of
his birthplace in old Ireland. He was burned out in 1847, and being ready for
business in January, 1848, he advertised to the world as follows : “The
proprietor of this house feels grateful for the patronage which he has received
under various circumstances. When compelled by fire to abandon his well-known
stand, his supporters did not forget him. He has now the satisfaction to
announce that occupies a splendid brick building, erected on the old site,
where he is prepared to give a hearty welcome to the public. From the stable to
the bar, everything will be found well-finished and in good order.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment