The Jew clothing-stores present the most marvelous fertility of invention in this style of advertising. Bills are posted all over the doorways, in the windows, on the pavements, and on the various articles of clothing hung up for sale. He who runs may read: “NOW OR NEVER! _Cheapest coats in the world!!_ PANTS GIVEN AWAY!!! WALK IN, GENTS.” And so on without limit. New clothes and clothes doubtful are offered for sale at these prolific establishments, which are always selling off at cost or suicidal prices, yet never seem to be reduced in stock. I verily believe I saw hanging at the door of one of these shops the identical pair of stockings stolen from me several years ago at Strawberry. Drinking establishments being rather numerous, the competition in this line of business gives rise to a very persuasive and attractive style of advertising. The bills are usually printed in florid and elaborately gilt letters, and frequently abound in pictures of an imaginative character. “Cosy Home,” “Miner’s Retreat,” “Social Hall,” “Empire,” “Indication,” “Fancy-Free,” “Snug,” “Shades,” etc., are a few of the seductive names given to these places of popular resort; and the announcements are generally followed by a list of “choice liquors” and the gorgeous attractions of the billiard department, together with a hint that Dick, Jack, Dan, or Jerry “is always on hand, and while grateful for past favors will spare no pains to merit a continuance of the same. By catering to the public taste he hopes to make his house in the future, as it has been in the past, a real Home for the Boys!” Nice homes these, and a nice family of boys that will come out of them! Where will they live when they grow to be men? A good idea it was to build a stone penitentiary. “_Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!_” “AUCTION SALES EVERY DAY!” This is another form of advertisement for a very prolific branch of trade. Day and night auctions are all the rage in Virginia as in San Francisco. Everything that can’t go any other way, and many things that can, go by auction. Stocks, horses, mules, boots, groceries, tinware, drugs and medicines, and rubbish of all kinds are put in flaming bills and auctioned off to the highest bidder for cash. “An’af! an’af! an’af! shall I have it?” is a part of the language popularly spoken on the principal streets. A cigar store not much bigger than a dry-goods box must have its mammoth posters out over the town and hill-sides, displaying to the public eye the prodigious assortments of Regalias, Principes, Cheroots, etc., and choice brands of “Yellow-leaf,” “Honey-dew,” “Solace,” and “Eureka,” to be had within the limits of their cigar and tobacco emporium. If Archimedes were to rush from the solace of a bath and run naked through the streets of Virginia, shouting, “Eureka! Eureka!” it would merely be regarded as a dodge to dispose of an invoice of Fine-Cut.