Some Victorian Classified Ads

Here are some classified ads from 1881 that prove that the more things change, the more they stay the same: as in the same get-rich-quick schemes (or scams), the same magic tricks and quack treatments. And of course, the kind of pictures that required plain brown wrappers (although they don't seem to mention that).

1. The ironically-named True & Co. would like to tell you how to make $12 a day (a lot of money in 1881) and give you a "costly outfit free." Suspicious lack of details, check. Suspicious offer of costly something for nothing, check.

2. Another place in Maine (are they related?) wants to give you something worth $5 for free and says you can make up to $20 a day. If only they weren't so taciturn up in Maine, maybe they would tell us how we're supposed to make all this money.

3. Time for a break, after all that commerce. How about a Joker's Dictionary and some spicy photographs? First we have Female Beauties and some Illustrated Catalogues. Followed by scarce photos from the Paris Book Company (never mind that they're in Chicago).

4. The Down Easters strike again, this time they say we can make $66 a week in our own town! Every time they place an ad, the promises get more and more inflated.

5. Speaking of which...Down in Boston, they are selling a little something called "Perfezione" with which you can "enlarge and develop" various parts of the anatomy. Oh, dear. But you do have to send them a dollar first. So you'd better write to one of those places in Maine and get busy making money.

From the New York Clipper, July 1881.