74 HISTORY OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM;
calimancoes, common and silk sagathies, florettas, bearskins, common and hair grazets, tabbies, ducapes, stay galloon and twist, men's and women's thread, dowlas, ozenbrigs, etc.
LIVE NEWS IN ADVERTISEMENTS
Charles Dudley Warner, who was connected for many years with The Courant of Hartford, Connecticut, once asserted that the colonial newspaper was a "broadside of stale news with a moral essay attached." Whatever may be true of the news, the advertisements in these old papers were rather interesting read- ing. There was nothing stale in this item inserted at regular rates in the columns of The New-York Gazette for 1734:
Whereas James Moor of Woodbridge has advertised in this Gazette, as well as by Papers sent out and posted up, that his Wife, Deliverance, has eloped from his Bed and Board. These are to certifie, that the Same is altogether false, for She has lived with Him above Eight Years under His tyranny and increditble Abuses, for He has several times attempted to murder Her and also turned Her out of Doors, shamefully abusing Her, which is well known to the Neighbors and Neighbourhood in Woodbridge.
An advertisement in The New York Weekly Post-Boy in 1756 showed that Barnum was not the first to discover that the Ameri- can people liked to be fooled once in a while :
To be seen at the sign of the Golden Apple, at Peck's Slip, price six- pence, children four coppers, a large snake-skin, 21 feet long and four feet one inch wide. It was killed by some of Gen. Braddock's men by firing six balls into him, close by the Allegheny Mountains, supposed to be coming down to feed on dead men. When it was killed, there was found in its belly a child, supposed to be four years old, together with a live dog! It had a horn on its tail seven inches long, and it ran as fast as a horse. All gentlemen and ladies desirous to see it may apply to the subscriber at Peck's Slip.
ADVERTISING AGENCY IN POST-OFFICES
In many localities, advertisements for colonial papers might be left at the local post-office. In some instances the local post- office would accept advertising copy for publication in papers in other places: it did so with the permission of the postal authorities. Sometimes the post-office made pu
