But the irate parent wasn’t through. Having solved the coded ad, and published his solution, he now answered it with vigor in an ad of his own. On February 19, the father addressed the lovers in the agony column as follows:
CENERENTOLA. What nonsense! Your cousin’s proposition is absurd. I have given an explanation, the true one, which has perfectly satisfied both parties, a thing which silence never could have effected. So no more absurdity.
This was the last word. No more cryptograms were exchanged between the couple. Obviously, Irate Parent had won, and the Constant Reader was obliged to return sadly to the more pedestrian Personal ads that begged prodigal sons to return home or suggested “tonight, same hour, same place.”
Today, though an established English institution, the agony column is by no means confined to the British Isles. The agony column has imitators in the newspapers of every civilized nation on earth and in every state of the United States. The American who, for his armchair adventure, picks up his New York Daily News or Chicago Tribune or San Francisco Chronicle, to turn with relish to the classified ads and run through the Personals, is reading only variations on an idea started by The Times of London as long ago as 1785. One American, the short-story writer O. Henry, acknowledged that he derived many of his ideas for fiction from his habit of reading these paid notices.
The Personal column, as a form of inexpensive amusement and a springboard for glamorous daydreams, is now as much a part of the American scene (and with about as much promise of escape) as the activities in print of Mr. Dick Tracy and Mr. J. Edgar Hoover. The New York Times alone receives as many as 2,500,000 classified ads a year, and a goodly number of these are in the best agony-column tradition. Recent ads included a request for “a haunted house” in Manhattan, and for buyers interested in 60,000 clean chicken wishbones. A typical New York Times ad, not long ago, requested that “Anyone knowing whereabouts of Robert Charlton, last heard of in New York 1900, or his descendants, communicate with Gilbert Charlton (brother), address 15 Brighton Street, Petersham, New South Wales, Australia.” A month later, The New York Times learned that the brothers, separated almost a half century and by thousands of miles, had incredibly been reunited through this Personal notice.
At the other end of the country, the Los Angeles Times, in its Personal column, carries numerous provocative ads beginning, “Lonely? Plain sealed details free.” Other ads hold out a variety of rare promises. For those who want money, “Cash for diamonds.” For those who want their loved ones, “Missing persons traced.” For those who demand less, “Good home desired for good boy 12.”
Because of its reader-amusement value, as well as its revenue potentialities, the Personal column has spread from newspapers to popular magazines and even trade journals. One American weekly, the Saturday Review, features some of the best agony ads in the business. Here, in an average issue, we find an “unusually stupid, utterly untalented charmless harmless male” eager to meet “similarly endowed female.” Here we find a “woman, weary of city’s drabness, invites correspondence from green hills far away.” Here, too, we find a Hawkshaw prepared to ferret out “information discreetly” on “any matter, person, problem, anywhere.”
But these American versions of the agony column, while good, are not the best. The best is still the original Personal column of The Times of London. Because it outranks all its imitators for sheer entertainment, drama, and eccentricity, the agony column of The Times has become the center of a growing legend. Earl Derr Biggers, before inventing Charlie Chan, used the agony column as the subject and title of a murder mystery. Both Edgar Wallace and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle drew upon it regularly for their fiction. Researchers into curiosities of human nature referred to the agony column. Only a few years ago, two American psychologists excerpted ads from the column to help illustrate character differences for their weighty tome. Plots and Personalities.
Today, the agony column appears daily on the front page of the staid London Times. This front page, with its seven columns of small type, is the only front page in London, and one of the very few in the world, devoted entirely to classified advertisements. The third column from the left, the one nicknamed the agony column, is headed with its formal name—“Personal.” Beneath this heading is a brief passage from the Bible (the Times personnel call it the Text), and a different quotation submitted by readers is used each day. A typical Text, which appeared in a recent edition, read, “‘As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise’—St. Luke vi, 31.”
The ads themselves occupy the rest of the column. Many persons submit ads thirty and forty lines long, but these are returned, since an ad needs an exceptional reason to be allowed more than five lines or thirty words. A five-line ad costs ten dollars and must be written in prose. Ads containing poetry are rejected. Display ads, ditto. The taboo against display ads was broken only once—“in the interests of justice”—and that was back in 1845. A wealthy gentleman had received three threatening letters, each in a different handwriting. He wanted to publish facsimiles of these letters, along with an offer of a $100 reward to anyone identifying their sources, in the agony column. The police thought that it was a good idea, and so The Times relaxed its policy and ran the display ad.
The man in charge of the agony column is a small, gray-haired, reticent advertising veteran named Mr. L. Canna. He looks like an elderly Bob Cratchit. He has been handling classified ads for The Times for over thirty years, and two years ago, was made the head of the agony column. His domain consists of a somewhat ventilated room (it was damaged by a hundred-pound Luftwaffe bomb during the Blitz) in The Times building off Printing House Square in London. The room has a counter and post-office-style grilles, before which most advertisers appear in person with their insertions. A small percentage of ads are submitted by mail, and some of these come from the United States. Americans like to send ads offering to sell Englishmen their old clothes, but Mr. Canna cannot accept these ads because of British currency control.
Mr. Canna’s main problem is postwar censorship. “The agony column does not advertise adoptions,” he says. “It does not advertise political grumbles, and it does not accept lonely-hearts or matrimonial advertisements.” During the war, according to Mr. Canna, the agony column was swamped with matrimonial ads sent in by American GI’s stationed in England. “The American boys usually described the English girls they wanted to marry. They wrote out the color of eyes preferred, the height and weight preferred, and in several cases suggested that if the female applicant had a little capital it would go a long way in her favor. The majority of GI’s also sent in photographs of themselves to go with the ads. We returned all, explaining that The Times does not handle this sort of advertisement.”
Mr. Canna is constantly on the alert for other transgressions. If a man wishes to repudiate his wife’s debts in the agony column, the ad must be submitted through an attorney. If a housewife wishes to advertise the sale of her furniture, she must prove her identity and give her address, since The Times does not like to have retail dealers use the column. If, after a robbery, the victim submits an ad stating that anyone returning the stolen goods “will be rewarded” and “no questions asked,” Mr. Canna must reject the ad since its publication would put The Times in the position of aiding and abetting a crime.
Many source books have vainly attempted to analyze the character of those ads that finally appear in the agony column. The august Encyclopaedia Britannica describes the agony column as one devoted to “announcements of losses or bequests…a medium also for matrimonial advertisements.” Mr. Canna shakes his head over this. “Entirely inadequate and entirely incorrect,” he says. Mr. Canna likes to read from a brochure on the agony column, issued by The Times, which defines the column more dramatically. “The largest human reading is found in our Personal column. Here, speaking in accents uncouth, is found the Average Man himself.”
Most members of The Times feel that the essence of the column was best caught by Constant Reade
r Peter Fleming. “The world of the Agony Column is a world of romance,” wrote Fleming, “across which sundered lovers are for ever hurrying to a familiar rendezvous (‘same time, same place’): a world in which jewellery is constantly being left in taxi-cabs with destinations which must surely be compromising: a world of faded and rather desperate gentility, peopled largely by Old Etonians and ladies of title…a world in which every object has a sentimental value, every young man a good appearance, and only the highest references are exchanged: an anxious, urgent, cryptic world: a world in which anything may happen.”
Indeed, a world in which anything may happen. A world in which the following advertisement (which was permitted to exceed The Times’ length restrictions), a novel in itself, a motion picture scenario certainly, recently appeared:
Middle-aged peer and peeress, energetic, capable, former with military and business experience, good linguist (French, German); latter good organizer, two and one-half years general nursing experience (London and military); desire suitable employment together with accommodations; no salary. London or near south or southwest England preferred.
The stream of dramatic and curious ads, in recent years, has been endless. Mr. Canna’s favorites include the ad offering to sell a tiny island off the Spanish Main, and another offering an isle in the Bahamas at a reduced price. Mr. Canna also remembers the man who advertised in the agony column for a parrot—offering to pay four dollars for every word the parrot could speak. Mr. Canna often clips his favorite ads, and one of these reads: “Wanted to hire. A full-grown forest-bred Bengal Tiger. Very active.”
The agony column has carried insertions offering a batch of Hon cubs for sale, a request for miniature monkeys (“I will pay $4 per ounce for the monkeys”), an inquiry for mustache cups, and an offer to purchase all Aeolian harps that could be had. Sometimes cryptic ads appear from Inland Revenue acknowledging the receipt of money—published at the request of persons who, having once evaded income tax, guiltily, anonymously, send in conscience money.
Recently, when I visited the London Times, I went through innumerable files of Personal columns. A typical advertiser had a “used Rolls-Royce” to sell or “an evening gown, worn once.” Mostly there were ex-servicemen seeking “remunerative posts,” including the lieutenant colonel “with high-powered car,” and the “ex-RAF wing commander, suffering from overdose of political inertia.”
Then there was the young accountant who lacked money to support his wife and two daughters and wished “to contact a Gentleman with desire to arrange mortgage on ray house.” There was the person with “Nelson relics for sale, American offers are welcome.” There was “the advertiser wishing to free himself from the tyranny of possessions, will sell car, pictures, camera, stamps, guns.” And, as in prewar days, the “titled lady and Oxford man willing to take small party young people on educational tour of France, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal.”
In these columns, I met the most interesting people. The “gentlewoman” who “takes paying guests in her beautiful country mansion.” The “young married ex-officer” who “requires practical experience of mushroom-growing.” The “stammering [gentleman]” who “wishes to meet another gentleman suffering from similar disability with view to discussing means of improvement.” Here, too, I met the “lady, aged 25″ who “wishes to see the world,” the “ex-Major, aged 29″ who is “despondent in today’s world of moribund commercialism,” and the “lady, 46, suffering acutely from Head Noises.”
Other ads intrigued with their half-told dramas:
Decidedly NO. Too dogmatic. Lack sympathy. Nothing in common between us—O.
C.A. You should remain steadfast whatever the cost.—Heartbroken mother.
Home wanted for Gentleman subject to alcoholic bouts. Supervision required.
Grateful thanks to the Lady of Lourdes.—H.B.
Susan. Please tell me how you are and what you are doing. Time isn’t changing anything. Love always.—Jon.
Hong Kong Resident whose library was looted during the Japanese occupation, wants to negotiate for replacement.
Articulated skeleton required.
But if today’s ads appear to have dramatic possibilities, they are but minor intrigue compared to some of the pathetic, villainous, and zany ads of the past. Although the first Personal column of The Times saw light in 1785, occasional ads of this type were printed years earlier when the paper was known as the Daily Universal Register. And even before, bizarre Personal advertisements were being published, such as the one that appeared in London during 1749, as part of the design for a gigantic practical joke.
In that year, several celebrated persons, including the Duke of Portland and the Earl of Chesterfield, were seated in their London club discussing the question of human gullibility.
“I will wager,” said the duke, “that let a man advertise the most impossible thing in the world, and he will find fools enough in London to fill a playhouse and pay handsomely for the privilege of being there.”
The Earl of Chesterfield objected “Surely, if a man should say that he would jump into a quart bottle, nobody would believe that.”
It was a tough challenge, but the duke stuck to his guns. He insisted that people would be gullible enough to believe it and made the wager.
The two wrote out a Personal advertisement:
AT THE NEW THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET, on Monday next, the 16th instant, is to be seen a Person . who performs the most surprising thing—viz, He presents you with a common Wine Bottle, which any of the spectators may first examine; this Bottle is placed on a Table in the middle of the Stage, and he (without any equivocation) goes into it, in the sight of all the spectators, and sings in it; during his stay in the Bottle, any Person may handle it, and see plainly that it does not exceed a common Tavern Bottle. Tickets to be had at the Theatre. To begin a half an hour after six o’clock.
The appearance of the advertisement created a sensation in London. There was a great rush for tickets priced from two to seven shillings, and on the scheduled night, the pit seats, the boxes, the galleries were packed with people. They waited patiently, until the appointed hour came and passed, and then they began to boo and catcall. The theater manager appeared, bowed, apologized for the delay, and announced that he would refund the money if the performer did not appear in fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes came, went—thirty minutes, an hour. The galleries began to hiss ominously. A nobleman threw a lighted candle from his box onto the stage. Then, as one, the audience rose, began ripping up seats and benches, began tearing down fixtures and curtain. Inside, the entire theater was gutted. Outside, its furnishings were transformed into a huge bonfire. In the chaos, someone stole off with the box office receipts.
And the Duke of Portland won his wager.
Thereafter, and for 162 successive years, the agony column dominated the game and offered a field day for its readers. High romance was afoot as early as August 20, 1795, when the following notice appeared in the Personal column of the ten-year-old Times:
If the Lady who, on Tuesday morning last, between 12 and 1 o’clock, was addressed by a Gentleman near the top of King Street, Covent Garden, when they afterwards walked together in that neighborhood, and an unexpected separation abruptly happened, would favour that Gentleman with a few lines, directed to A.B. at the Turk’s Head Coffeehouse, in the Strand, to remain till called for, and mentioning any morning, place and hour, when and where he may have the satisfaction of meeting her again, he would esteem himself much obliged-One’s imagination soars. Who was the ardent Gentleman? Up from the country, no doubt, or he would have been walking in a better part of town and would not have accosted an unattended Lady. And the Lady? “Who was the unknown fair who had made such an impression on the gentleman who accosted her?” muses an editor of The Times. “Ladies encountered by chance in Covent Garden, unaccompanied and of none too difficult access, were not generally the type for the renewal of whose acquaintance one would insert eager appeals in The Times. What was she? Clari
ssa Harlowe or Moll Flanders? A countess incognito? A masquerading lady’s-maid (the 18th century was much too full of these)? A beautiful distressed emigre from across the Channel?” And how did their unexpected separation come about? The Lady’s guardian, her husband—who or what frightened her? And, after the Personal ad appeared, did she write, did they meet again? What tragicomedy followed?
The agony column merely posed the questions, started the game. Each reader supplied his own answers. But other provocative advertisements overshadowed that one. In 1795, came a simple, somewhat terrifying announcement. “A most capital, superb, and valuable assemblage of jewels, late the property of Madame la Comtesse du Barry, deceased.” Madame du Barry had lost her head, in France, two years before. And in 1798, when matrimonial advertisements were still permitted, a touch of humor. A gentleman requests a wife. “I am of excellent and unimpaired constitution, but afflicted with an incurable weakness in the knees, occasioned by the kick of an Ostrich.” And, in that same year, another amusing advertisement. “Two pigs found swimming in the Thames, near Westminster Bridge. Now safely lodged, awaiting a suitable reward, at the Swan, by Lambeth Church.”
A whole series of mundane patent medicines and new inventions ushered in the 1800’s. In the agony column, “a Medical Man” offers for sale his newly invented “Patent Coestus,” an elastic steel belt, “used in my own family above 15 years, preserves the vital organs from pressure and retains the figure in that beautiful oval form so remarkable in Grecian sculpture.” Another ad features “Soyer’s Magic Stove” which “enables a Gentleman to cook his dinner in his pocket.” And of greater moment, the first announcement, by some genius, of braces or suspenders. “New invented gallowses or breeches suspensors, for keeping up the breeches without girting them tight around the waist, but, on the contrary, keep them well up and loose.”
The Sunday Gentleman Page 31