The "H-O" advertisement is not one whit more monstrous than, for
instance, the huge announcements of cheap clothing-shops, &c., painted
all over the ends of houses, that deface the railway approaches to
Paris; nor is it so flagrant and aggressive as the illuminated
advertisements of whisky and California wines that vulgarise the august
spectacle of the Thames by night. It is true that the proprietors of
"Castoria" have occupied nearly every blank wall that is visible from
Brooklyn Bridge; but their advertisements are so far from garish that I
should scarcely have noticed them had not Mr. Steevens called my
attention to them. Sky-signs, as Mr. Steevens admits, are unknown in New
York; so are the flashing out-and-in electric advertisements which make
night hideous in London. One or two large steady-burning advertisements
irradiate Madison Square of an evening; but being steady they are
comparatively inoffensive. Twenty years ago, when I crossed the
continent from San Francisco, I noticed with disgust the advertisements
stencilled on every second rock in the canyons of Nevada, and defacing
every coign of vantage around Niagara. Whether this abuse continues I
know not; but I know that the pill placards and sauce puffs which
blossom in our English meadows along every main line of railway are
quite as offensive. Far be it from me to deny that advertising is
carried to deplorable excesses in America; but in picking this out as a
differentia, Mr. Steevens shows that his intentness of observation in
New York has for the moment dimmed his mental vision of London. It is a
case, I fancy, in which the expectation was father to the thought.

Similarly, Mr. Steevens notes, "No chiropodist worthy of the name but
keeps at his door a modelled human foot the size of a cab-horse; and
other trades go and do likewise." The "cab-horse" is a monumental
exaggeration; but it is true that some chiropodists use as a sign a foot
of colossal proportions--the size of a small sheep, let us say, if we