Placard advertising, of an orderly, and even ornamental, character, has assumed extensive proportions at most of the metropolitan railway stations, the agents to whom we have just referred having extended their operations in the direction of blank spaces on the walls, which they sublet to the general advertising public. Often firms which advertise on an extensive scale themselves contract with the railway companies, and not a few have extended their announcements from the stations to the sides of the line, little enamelled plates being used for this purpose. Any one having a vacant space at the side of his house, or a blank wall to the same, may, provided he live in anything like a business thoroughfare, and that the vantage place is free from obstruction, do advantageous business with an advertisement contractor; and, as matters are progressing, we may some day expect to see not only the private walls of the houses in Belgrave Square and suchlike fashionable localities well papered, but the outsides and insides of our public buildings utilised as well by the hand of the advertiser. One thing is certain, no one could say that many of the latter would be spoiled, no matter what the innovation to which they were subjected. The most recent novelty in advertising has been the introduction of a cabinet, surmounted by a clock face, into public-house bars and luncheon rooms. These cabinets are divided into spaces of say a superficial foot each, which are to be let off at a set price. So far as we have yet seen, these squares have been filled for the most part with the promoters’ advertisements only; and it is admitted by all who know most about advertising that the very worst sign one can have as to the success of a medium is that of an advertisement emanating from the promoters or proprietors of anything in which such advertisement appears. Why this should be we are not prepared to say. We are more able to show why it should not be; for no man, advertisement contractor or otherwise, should, under fair commercial conditions, ask another to do what he would not do himself. So we are satisfied to rest content with the knowledge that what we have stated is fact, however incongruous it may seem, which any one can endorse by applying himself to the ethics of advertising. Certainly, in the instance quoted, the matter looks very suggestive; perhaps it depends on the paradox, that he who is most anxious that others should advertise is least inclined to do so himself.