THE AGE OF DISFIGUREMENT. 
175 
we have already pointed out,"' cannot fail to be approved by 
every Selbornian, and Mr. Richardson Evans’ little book should be 
read by every member of the Sel borne Society, and presented to 
free libraries up and down the country. We have not space to 
devote to a lengthy notice, but here are one or two extracts, 
which will give some idea of the character of the work. 
After suggesting, among other remedies, the taxing of ad- 
vertising posters, which is almost — if not quite — universal in 
continental countries, Mr. Evans says : — 
The weapon from the vigorous use of which I should expect the best results lies 
ready to be grasped and wielded by every householder. The nuisance culminates 
in the effort to secure notoriety for certain varieties of commodities that are in 
general consumption. Those who are aggrieved have the remedy in their own 
hands. They have only to cease to use any article which is offensively advertised. 
By this blameless exercise of the right of discrimination they will not only dis- 
courage iniquity, but will save money ; for, of course, the cost of wholesale puffing 
is included in the price, and there is hardly a case in which, by proper inquiry, a 
substitute of equal, perhaps identical quality, may not be procured at a reduction 
of 25 per cent. As the persons likely to act on this advice constitute the class to 
which, as a rule, the staring insincerities of the posters are addressed, the enter- 
prising managers would very soon find that their unscrupulous zeal did not pay. 
Their conscience would at last be touched in its sensitive point. 
This is, it must be confessed, a somewhat heroic remedy ; 
but if it were adopted to any appreciable extent it could not fail 
to have an effect upon the soap, mustard and pill makers who 
are the chief offenders. Here is one of the many “ instances ” 
which Mr. Evans adduces in support of his arguments : — 
Take a graveyard in the heart of a great town, which the exertions of the 
Kyrle Society, or of Lord Meath and his friends, assisted by local or corporate 
munificence, have rescued from neglect, and converted into a pretty garden. 
Some houses round have, perhaps, been acquired, and the sites added to this 
much desired open space. The result of the clearance is to bring into sunshine 
and prominence the walls and windows of other buildings, and the owners of 
these see their way to making a profit by letting them out to the constractors, or 
using them for drawing attention to their own existence. The result is, in any 
case, to destroy much of the picturesqueness ; to place eyesores over the little 
vista of green that the taste of the gardener contrives. We spend some thousands 
of pounds in creating the little sylvan patch, and, for want of a bye-law, allow 
the worst feature of the city life to dominate all. If anyone imagines that this is 
not a transcript from fact let the doubter go to the gardens on the Thames 
Embankment (which cost who knows how many tens of thousands) and observe 
what the directors of two Railway Companies have done to add to their embellish- 
ment. The Charing Cross Station is not a thing of beauty, but it is a gratuitous 
and intolerable abuse that those who made it should take advantage of their own 
wrong, and wound the sight they have taken so little pains to please. 
With the hideous advertisements which are now spreading 
over the face of the country Mr. Evans has no patience. 
The erections in fields should not be allowed a moment’s law. They are an 
abomination to everyone. The persons who have put them up will plead, no 
doubt, that in these days of agricultural depression, the poor struggling farmer 
ought not to be deprived of the extra shillings he earns by lending himself and his 
field to the powers of evil. I believe the same defence has been set up for those 
who send diseased meat to market. The juries have not admitted its force. It 
would be more manly to take at once to highway robbery. Yet we owe no small 
Nature Notes, 1893, p. 81. 
