im, he [Mr. Edwards] allowed his said servant, with another of his
son-in-law, to sell it publicly." So it came about that Pasqua Rosee set
up a coffee house in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill.

And since Pasqua Rosee's idea, naturally, was to acquaint the London
public with the virtues and delectable qualities of the product of which
his prospective customers were naturally uniformed, he put into his
advertisement those facts and arguments which he felt would be most
likely to attract attention, to excite interest, and to convince. If the
reader will glance at Rosee's advertisement, which is reproduced on page
55, he will be struck with the well-nigh irresistible charm of his
unaffected, straightforward bid for patronage. Having no advertising
fetishes to warp his judgment, he told an interesting story in a natural
manner, carrying conviction. It matters not that some of the virtues
attributed to the drink have since been disallowed. He believed them to
be true. Few there were in those days who knew the real "truth about
coffee."

Even his typography, unstudied from the standpoint of modern "display,"
is attractive, appropriate, and exceedingly pleasant to the eye. And
since at that time there was no cereal substitute or other bugaboos to
contend against, and to hinder him from doing the simple, obvious thing
in advertising, he did that very thing--and did it exceedingly well.

[Illustration: HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION IN ADVERTISING]

[Illustration: PACKAGE-COFFEE ADVERTISING IN 1922

Specimens of newspaper copy used by some of the most enterprising
package-coffee advertisers, East and West]

In fact, in the historic advertisement, Pasqua Rosee set an example and
established a copy standard which had a very beneficial effect on all
the coffee advertising of that early date. This will be evident from a
glance at the accompanying exhibits of other early advertisements. It
was not until the days of so-called "modern" advertising that coffee
publicity reached low-water mark in efficiency and value. In these dark
days most coffee advertisers ignored the principles discovered and
applied in other lines of grocery merchandising. Instead of telling
their public how good their product was, they actually followed the
opposite course, and warned the public against the dangers of coffee
drinking! Instead of saying to the public, "Coffee has many virtues, and
our brand is one of the best examples," their text said in effect,
"Coff