THIS MEANS MONEY TO YOU--_BIG MONEY_
LET ME PAY YOUR NEXT MONTH'S RENT
READ IT--ON OUR WORD IT'S WORTH READING
STOP SHOVELING YOUR MONEY INTO THE FURNACE
NOW LISTEN! I WANT A PERSONAL WORD WITH YOU
CUT YOUR LIGHT BILL IN HALF

* * * * *

Such introductions have undoubtedly proved exceedingly effective at
times, but like many other good things, the idea has been
overworked. The catch-line of itself sells no goods and to be
effective it must be followed by trip-hammer arguments. Interest
created in this way is hard to keep up.

The correspondent may use a catch-line, just as the barker at a side
show uses a megaphone--the noise attracts a crowd but it does not
sell the tickets. It is the "spiel" the barker gives that packs the
tent. And so the average man is not influenced so much by a bold
catch-line in his letters as by the paragraphs that follow. Some
correspondents even run a catch-line in red ink at the top of the
page, but these yellow journal "scare-heads" fall short with the
average business proposition.

Then attention may be secured, not by a startling sentence but by
the graphic way in which a proposition is stated. Here is an opening
that starts out with a clear-cut swing:


"If we were to offer you a hundred-dollar bill as a gift we take it