September 16, 1916 



HOBTICULTURE 



379 



1909, and at the end of that year be- 

 came his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Aldous 

 then went west, and took up their 

 residenie in Iowa City. Mrs. Aldous 

 was an intensely religious woman, and 

 was unusually active in mission work. 

 She had been an invulid for months 

 and had been confined to her home 

 much of the time. 



John Boyle 



Washington, D. C, on Monday last 

 lost one Qf its oldest and best known 

 members of the trade when John 

 Boyle, of Silver Springs, Md., was 

 called to his last home. Mr. Boyle 

 was 79 years of age and for many 

 years was a familiar figure in and 

 around the Center Market, where he 

 maintained a stand which was in the 

 charge of his daughter, Miss Mary 

 Boyle. At one time he was employed 

 at the Botanic Gardens, under the late 

 William R. Smith, and later he en- 

 tered the service of the Department 

 of Agriculture. When the late Mr. 

 Saul's business, located on a part of 

 what is now known as Saul's addition, 

 was offered on the market, he secured 

 possession. He later removed to Sil- 

 ver Springs, Md., where he continued 

 in the business, raising flowers which 

 he retailed at the market. Funeral 

 services were held on Thursday, fol- 

 lowing which the interment was in 

 Rock Creek Cemetery. 



Please 



Look 



Carefully 



through the ad- 

 vertisements in 

 this paper and 

 you will surely 



Find 



Something 

 You 



Want. 



You Can Never 

 Buy Cheaper 

 Than Now ! 



Honest Advertising, Discontented Partners 



Various Cases Brought Under Hon- 

 est Advertising Laws. 



In these articles I have several 

 times discussed different phases of the 

 honest advertising law, which has 

 been enacted now in most of the 

 States. In substance, all these acts 

 are closely similar. They provide 

 that anybody making false representa- 

 tions in any form of advertising as to 

 the real value, or character, or brand, 

 or origin, or quality of merchandise 

 which he offers for sale, shall be 

 guilty of a misdemeanor and subject 

 to fine or imprisonment. 



In some States the honest advertis- 

 ing law has been very vigorously en- 

 forced, in others it has not been en- 

 forced at all. In Pennsylvania, my 

 own state, no effort worth the name 

 has been made to do anything with it. 

 The most effective campaigns which 

 have been waged under advertising 

 laws have been waged by associations 

 of merchants formed for that purpose, 

 or existing associations which added 

 this as a new department. 



When the states first began to pass 

 honest advertising laws, I predicted 

 that most prosecutions would be for 

 false statements regarding the real 

 value of a "bargain," or its former 

 value. This prediction has not been en- 

 tirely borne out. There have been a 

 great many such cases, but at least an 

 equal number have been brought for 

 niaking fasle statements regarding the 

 origin of goods offered as bargains, 

 usually for offering them as goods 

 bcught at bankrupt sales when they 

 were merely part of the regular stock. 



I have rather closely followed the 

 enforcement of these most useful laws 

 and here present brief reports of sev- 

 eral prosecutions brought under them 

 in various places. One of the most in- 

 teresting was brought in Spokane, 

 Wash. Readers hereof will remember 

 that when I predicted that most pros- 

 ecutions would be for falsely repre- 

 senting a former or real value, where 

 an article was offered for less, I ad- 

 mitted that this would be about the 

 most difficult part of the act to en- 

 force, because the actual value of an 

 article was within certain limits a 

 matter of opinion, and therefore it 

 was going to be difficult to prove a 

 given representation intentionally 

 false. I showed by illustration how 

 this could be done, however, viz., by 

 producing testimony of expert wit- 

 nesses that the article whose real 

 value was given at such and such a 



figure, had never sold for that and 

 rever in the nature of things would 

 he sold for that. Where this evidence 

 was available the defendant would be 

 held to have known the fact. 



The Spokane case was against a 

 piano dealer who advertised "Weiler 

 pianos, regularly $400, on sale at the 

 special price of $195." Prosecution 

 was begun, based on the charge that 

 the representation that Weiler pianos 

 wore sold regularly at $400, was false. 

 At the trial it was shown that the 

 Weiler piano cost $75 at the factory 

 and $90 laid down in Spokane, and 

 had never been sold at such a price as 

 $400. The advertiser was found 

 guilty and fined. 



In a case brought in Milwaukee, 

 Wis., a local advertiser had for a 

 long time been particularly extrava- 

 gant in his price comparisons. "Real 

 value," or "former value," or "worth," 

 so much. Here the matter was cured 

 without prosecution. The local mer- 

 chants' association induced the news- 

 papers to go to the advertiser and tell 

 him that if he didn't moderate his 

 comparisons he would be prosecuted. 



In Indianapolis, Ind., a department 

 store adveitised "$2 Medallions for 23 

 cents," and showed a picture of a 

 framed medallion. The customer who 

 went in after one found that the 23- 

 cent price was for the medallion un- 

 framed, and the local association got 

 the storekeeper to modify his adver- 

 tising by stating that the medallions 

 were unframed. 



In another case which arose under 

 the Indiana law, also in Indianapolis, 

 an advertiser announced "the biggest 

 sale of clothing in many years." The 

 stock was represeted to have been 

 brought from a bankrupt sale. The 

 fact was that only a small part of it 

 had been; the balance was from the 

 store's own stock. The concern was 

 compelled to change its advertising to 

 conform with the facts. 



An exactly similar case transpired 

 in I.os ."Angeles, Cal., where a dealer 

 advertised a bankrupt sale of pianos — 

 "the entire stock" of a bankr\ipt con- 

 cern—though he had bought only eight 

 pianos from the bankrupt stock and 

 the balance was his own. This man 

 was prosecuted, pleaded guilty and 

 was fined. 



A New York City retail hat dealer 

 committed a fraud which I am told 

 has been widespread during the pres- 

 ent season — he advertised for $2.85, a 

 "genuine Panama hat, value $5, $6 and 

 $7.50." The local association took the 

 case up and brought prosecution. The 

 "genuine Panama" hat was proved to 

 be a cheap imitation from Japan. The 

 defendant was found guilty and fined. 

 His only defense was that the manu- 

 facturer of the hats bad stamped 

 "genuine Panama" inside, but this was 

 not accepted. Under most honest ad- 

 vertising laws, this would not be 



