The Democratic Advocate

We notice that many of our exchanges are turned into mere handbills, to gratify the whims and fancies of advertisers. The two-column advertisement, in large poster type, is much affected, and very often the breadth of three and four columns is occupied, while some, with still more expansive ideas, spread their advertisements clear across the page! The comeliness of a newspaper is thus very much marred, and the advertiser not one whit benefitted. A neat and well-displayed advertisement, in one column, may as easily be read as if it extended across the entire page, and, to our notion, is much more attractive. Large, unsightly advertisements, are worrying newspaper readers, who throw down the paper in disgust, declaring it is no more than a common handbill. The value of any paper, as an advertising medium, depends upon the degree of favoritism with which it is regarded by its patrons. If the paper is popular, and its arrival greeted by the family with pleasure and delight, every word of it will be eagerly read, advertisements and all. But, if its beauty be marred with big poster type, and especially if it be badly set up and badly printed, little or no interest is felt in it, and it is tossed aside with the contemptuous remark "there is nothing in it." Loud and obtrusive advertisements are not the things to render a newspaper popular. Not unfrequently they lessen its circulation, and advertisers ought to know this fact, for they defeat the very object they have in view, which is to have their advertisements read by as large a number of people as possible.