It is now apparent that advertising has become recognised as a means of communication not only for the conveniencies of trade, but for political, lovemaking, fortune-hunting, swindling, and the thousand and one other purposes which are always ready to assert themselves in a large community. It is also evident that as years have progressed, advertising has become more and more necessary to certain trades, the principals in which a comparatively short time before would have scorned the idea of ventilating their wares through the columns of the public press. So it is therefore as well to notice the rates which were charged by some of the papers. This was before the duty was placed upon advertisements, when the arrangement was simply between one who wished a notice inserted in a paper, and another who possessed the power of making such insertion. It is of course impossible to tell what the rates were on all papers, but as some had notices of price per advertisement stated at foot, a fair estimate may be made. The first advertisements were so few that no notice was called for, and it was not until every newspaper looked forward to the possession of more or less that the plan of stating charges became common. About the period of which we are now writing, long advertisements were unknown; they generally averaged about eight lines of narrow measure, and were paid for at about a shilling each, with fluctuations similar in degree to those of the leading papers of the present day. Various rules obtained upon various papers. One journal, the “_Jockey’s Intelligencer_, or Weekly Advertisements for Horses and Second-Hand Coaches to be Bought and Sold,” which appeared towards the end of the seventeenth century, charged “a shilling for a horse or coach for notification, and sixpence for renewing.” Still later, the _County Gentleman’s Courant_ seems to have been the first paper to charge by the line, and in one of its numbers appears the following rather non-sequitous statement: “Seeing promotion of trade is a matter which ought to be encouraged, the price of advertisements is advanced to twopence per line.” Very likely many agreed with the writer, who seems to have had a follower several years afterwards--a corn dealer, who during a great dearth stuck up the following notification: “On account of the great distress in this town, the price of flour will be raised one shilling per peck.” But neither of these men meant what he said, though doubtless he thought he did. The first advertisement with which we open the century is of a semi-religious character, and betrays a very inquiring disposition on the part of the writer. Facts of the kind required are, however, too stubborn to meet with publication at the request of everybody, and if Mr Keith and other controversialists had been trammelled by them, there is every probability that the inquiry we now republish would never have seen the light:--