You may take up--or what is of more consequence--your little boy or girl may take up--a newspaper, and read, on one side of it, a leading article which might be preached out of a pulpit: on the other a series of turpitudes unfit for utterance under any circumstances.
These atrocities are heightened to the point of perfection by the circumstance that they are the puffs of a set of rascally quacks, not the least mischievous of whose suggestions are the recommendations of their own medicines--poison for the body which they vend to simpletons, whilst they disseminate mental poison gratis, both in the advertisements themselves, and in books which form the subject of them, in addition to the other poison.
As the newspaper-proprietors whose journals are sullied by these putrescences may be of opinion that the odour of gain, from whatever source derived, is agreeable, and, therefore, preserve them as rather fragrant than otherwise, the following exhortation has been addressed to their customers:--
"It rests with you--with you alone, newspaper readers, to stop the torrent. And you can do it, without expense, and with but little self-denial. Let each individual that receives this appeal write without delay to the editor of the paper he reads, whenever he sees it defiled by one of these easily-recognised advertisements, and say that, unless its insertion is discontinued, he cannot, in conscience, any longer patronise the publication. Whatever your station may be, you can do something; and the higher it is, the greater is your influence and responsibility. On country gentlemen rests mainly the persistence of the evil in provincial papers; they can, and we trust they will stop it. Let, too, each one of you that are advertisers, be you publishers, men of business, authors, masters seeking servants, or servants seeking masters, refuse to appear any more in such company, and let it be known at the newspaper office why you withhold your patronage."
The above paragraph is extracted from the prospectus of a society which has been formed for the special purpose of suppressing this villanous pufferty. The association is entitled "The Union for Discouragement of Vicious Advertisements;" and we hope it will succeed in closing a channel of communication which has all the qualities, except the utility, of a gutter.