PRINTING AND BOOKMAKING.
 

AGA
 

being of very inferior quality, will present an appear¬
ance the very reverse of handsome. The objection to
the second is that many are cheats, and the reader to
some extent associates the publisher with them. It in¬
jures the standing of the newspaper and the value of the
other advertisements.

Advertisements in the United States are not taxed
and never have been, except during the Civil War and
immediately afterward. This was at the rate of 3 per
cent., and returned about $1,000,000 in all for the five
years it was imposed, from 1863 to 1867, inclusive. In
England, however, a duty was levied on advertisements
for many years, beginning before the Napoleonic wars.
In the early part of the century this amounted to 3s. 6d.
duty on every one, whether important or unimportant.
The result was that the long-established and profitable
papers were rendered still more profitable ; for if a
sum of money must be paid for the tax, in addition to
the value of the advertisement, no one would try a new
and weak journal, but would rather place his favor
where it would have the most readers. This duty was
abolished in 1853.

The current rate of charge on standing advertise¬
ments has been, in New York, five cents per 1,000 ems a
week or ten cents a month, but it is a question whether
this is enough. De Vinne in his Price-List of 1871 makes
the charges on standing matter at ten cents per 1,000
ems on weekly papers and fifteen cents each month on
monthlies. When the edition is very large and is not
stereotyped a greater price should be made. A font of
type will give only 250,000 impressions on good work,
and not more than twice that on anything. So that a
standing advertisement in a paper of 50,000 circulation
will be worn out in from five to ten weeks.

AdYertising Agent.—A broker who collects ad¬
vertisements and inserts them in newspapers, receiving
commissions upon them from the journals. He differs
from a solicitor of advertisements, who is in the em¬
ployment of the newspaper and does not guarantee
their payment. When an agent orders the insertion of
a notice the publisher looks to him alone for the bill,
and not to the person who is benefited. The commis¬
sion paid on the smaller papers is usually 25 per cent,
and on the larger from 10 to 20, while there are certain
newspapers that pay from 30 to 40, and sometimes as
high as %Q% is given. It is needless to say that in these
cases the advertising is not worth anywhere near the
price asked for it, as the publisher knows. The com¬
mon basis for payment of advertising is a cent a line
per thousand circulation, but this must be modified
according to exigencies. There is a certain newspa¬
per published in New York which does not issue more
than three or four thousand copies per week, but asks
twenty-five cents a line, with scarcely any discount on
long advertisements or long time. Yet it pays to ad¬
vertise in it. The three or four thousand it sends out
are to the richest stock speculators, railroad managers
and active capitalists in the world. He who wishes
to place a great railroad scheme before the public can¬
not do better with his money than to put it there.
Under the same category come trade papers. They
ask high prices because they address just the audience
that the advertiser wishes to reach. The advertising
agent does not deal much with these journals, nor
with any that occupy a select but limited field. He
takes business for the popular papers chiefly. With
them the estimate of a cent a line per thousand circula¬
tion is a fair one, w^eeklies being worth more than this
and dailies less. The agent serves a valuable purpose.
He gathers the little advertisements of the country and
places them in the newspaper, which the advertisers
would be unable to do at anywhere near the expense,
as it would require considerable letter writing and
many postage stamps. There are in the United States
and Canada about eighteen thousand periodicals, and a
 

letter sent to all of them with an inquiry would cost at
least three cents apiece, without the labor of directing.
That alone would be $540. The advertiser has no list
of newspapers, no schedule of charges and no idea as
to circulation. The agent has, and puts his knowledge
at the disposal of his patrons. He serves another valu¬
able purpose in insuring that the money thus earned will
be paid. Good business managers of newspapers will
not take advertisements valued at $2 or $3 from persons
in distant towns whom they do not know. They do know
the agents, and the agents know the residents in their
own localities. It is supposed that there are about two
hundred advertising agents in the United States, some
doing a business of $500,000 a year. One advertising
agent has done a business of $1,200,000 a year. Some
agents also deal in type and ink, but the majority con¬
fine themselves to advertising proper. When the news¬
papers which contain their notices are received they are
examined as to insertion, location and correctness, and
are checked and filed away, some agencies keeping
them a year, so that their customers can see them at
any time. The first advertising agent in the Union
was the late John Hooper, of New, York, who preceded
Van Buren Palmer a short time. He began in 1841,
having previously been a clerk on the New York Trib¬
une, then just started. The New York Directory of
1851 had only four names of agents, and as late as 1870
nine-tenths of the business in New York was transacted
by five firms. There are at present over thirty doing a
good business, besides a number of smaller ones.

AdYertising Rule.—A thin line of brass, type
high, used to divide one advertisement from another.
In daily newspapers they vary in thickness from four
to pica to agate, the shoulder being cast on them.

AdYertising Solicitor.—One who gathers adver¬
tisements for a newspaper and is in its employment.
He is paid by commission, salary, or both combined.
Advertisements thus received should be on blank forms,
filled in with writing, and with the advertiser's name
signed to it. Nothing is more common than for an ad¬
vertiser who has given a verbal order to deny it.

AdYy.—An abbreviation for advertisements, now    q^nda
little heard.    The plural is ad vies.                                  ^^

M.—A diphthong of frequent occurrence in Latin
and in words derived from the Latin. Many modern
editors of Latin books separate the two letters, as they
do oe. For instance, sedibus, gratise, regiae are fre¬
quently spelled aedibus, gratiae, regiae. M is ex¬
pressed in German by a.

Afflche, 1' (Fr,).—A handbill, a poster.
AiHssi (Ital.).—Handbills or posters.
AfQ.x.—A syllable added to the stem of the original
word, the same as suffix.

Afghanese.—The language of the natives of Af¬
ghanistan makes use of the Arabic characters as well
as of a number of special ones. It is sometimes
called Pushtu,

Agate.—A small size of printing-type, between pearl
and nonpareil, half the size of small pica, A little over
thirteen lines go to the inch. By the point system it
nearly corresponds to five and a half points. Its chief
use is for advertisements and market reports in daily
papers, on which it is generally the smallest size used.
It is also largely employed in time-tables. It was un¬
known before 1822, when George Bruce, who was en¬
deavoring to have a truer relation between the bodies
of type than then existed, saw the gap between pearl
and nonpareil, and introduced this size to fill it. In
England it is called ruby. Hansard's Typographia,
pulDlished in 1825, says that a few years before it was
found by him absolutely necessary to give some distin¬
guishing appellation to this size, as the founders had
given him one-nick pearls of two bodies, one of half

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