Value of Advertisement.

Progress, 1 November 1905, Page 16

Value of Advertisement.

There was an influential gathering of City men at Anderton's Hotel recently, when Sir William Treloar, on behalf of a large number of friends, presented Mr. W. G. Thame, the late advertising manager of the Standard, with a handsome testimonial as a mark of their esteem. Sir William Treloar, in offering the tokens to Mr. Thame, whose birthday it was, mentioned that he had known the recipient of their good wishes for very many years. That gentleman used to induce him to spend a good deal of money m advertising, and he felt it difficult to dissociate him from the occupation their guest had so ably followed. He (Sir William) had been looking up some old newspapers, and found that forty-one years ago his father had a shop on Ludgate Hill which the Chatham Railway Company acquired when they put a bridge across that thoroughfare. His father brought an action for compensation, and in his evidence he said a good many things about advertising which were interesting. He gave it as his opinion that advertising in a certain number of years repaid to the extent of 10 or 15 per cent. Advertising was a science which it was necessary to study, and although it would not return profits for some time it soon did so. His father also told the judge that he had had a gentleman m his shop who carried a newspaper seven years old, and pointed out that a considerable purchase resulted from the perusal of an advertisment published seven years before it reached the eye of his customer. Some years back Sir William Treloar said his income-tax assessment was doubled. He appealed and found the commissioners not very wide awake. It was not so now — he spoke as an income-tax commissioner. (Laughter ) Asked why they overcharged him, one of the commissioners produced three copies of a paper in which he had a whole-page advertisment, and said • " It is impossible to spend a lot of money like that unless you have a large income." He laughingly replied, " It shows you know nothing about it. These advertisments are flags of distress which I show when I want business." The experience of Sir William Treloar is that of every other liberal advertiser, whatever goods he advertises. The " flag 0+ distress " is rarely run up in vain. As Gladstone said, advertising is to business what steam is to an engine the great propelling power. The mistake so often made by advertisers is to cut down their advertising expenses when trade is a bit dull. A wiser course would be the allocation of a larger sum for the purpose of advertising at such times. It is precisely the right thing to do to advertise m slack times, and it is equally far-seeing to adveitise when things are brisk. The " flag of distress " should be kept flying all the time.

What is claimed to be the largest centrifugal pump ever built has been produced at the Byron Jackson Machine Works, of San Francisco. It consists of a high head centrifugal pump of the fivestep series type, operating under a maximum pressure of 250 fts, per square inch, which is equivalent to a total 1 ft of 580 ft. Its capacity under normal condition is 9,000'gallons of water per minute, and it is driven by four 400-h.p. turbine water-wheels.