tirely unselfish in such a desire and suggests that the doctor pay more attention to the ethics of his own profession and less to that of the press. The manufacturers of medicines of merit maintain that it is just as honorable to advertise a product which will relieve a stomach of an ache as it is to advertise a mincemeat that puts an ache in the stomach: that it is as ethical to describe the merits of a corn plaster to take corns away as it is to sell shoes which make corns. Whatever opinion may be held about these matters there can be no question that the American newspaper is no longer a directory of patent medicine manufacturers of products of no merit.
APPLICATION OF GRESHAM'S LAW
While it took newspaper publishers some time to learn that Gresham's law, of the good driving out the bad, applied as well to advertising as to money, they had no difficulty to read the handwriting when it appeared on the walls of the countingroom. Especially was this true of financial advertising. The advertisement of the swindler was weighed in the balance and found wanting and the press refused to be a partner in selling a hole in the ground for a gold mine or a swamp-lake for real estate. The modern code of ethics demands that any financial advertising which promises an unusually high rate of interest should be carefully investigated before appearing in print. It also demands the exclusion of the announcement of that advertiser who, dealing previously in gilt-edged securities, "changes his line" and seeks to insert the announcement of "gold brick mining schemes." The Tribune, of Chicago, once set a very good precedent: it received by telegraph an order for the insertion of a page advertisement which in flamboyant words predicted immediate wealth through the purchase of stocks advertised, but instead of publishing the advertisement, The Tribune gave a whole page with something like the following printed in the center, "Mr. Blank telegraphed last night that he wished a page in The Tribune in which to print an advertisement of the So-and-So mines. The Tribune is through with Mr. Blank. It will print no more of his advertising and takes this method of announcing its position to its readers."
