upward of two hundred years it had served as an advertising medium,
in company with the more robust broadside, and in competition with the
pamphlet and newspaper. It remained for America, however, to glorify the
handbill by means of colored pictures; and one of the earliest and best
specimens of the picture handbill is the Arbuckle circular here
illustrated.

[Illustration: FIRST HANDBILL IN COLORS FOR PACKAGE COFFEE ABOUT 1872]

Soon the handbill copy began to appear in the newspapers, but mostly
without the illustrations. Later newspaper developments were to
introduce more of the picture element, decorative border, and design.
The ideas of European artists were freely drawn upon, but put to so
utilitarian uses that their originators would scarce have recognized
them.

In the _Ladies Home Journal_ for December, 1888, the Great London Tea
Company, Boston, an early mail-order house, advertised, "We have made a
specialty since 1877 of giving premiums to those who buy tea and coffee
in large quantities." In the same issue, there was an advertisement of
Seal Brand and Crusade Brand coffee by Chase & Sanborn, Boston. Dilworth
Bros., Pittsburgh, were also among the early users of magazine space.

The menace of the cereal coffee-substitute evil had grown to such
proportions at the beginning of the twentieth century, that the coffee
men began to be concerned about it. Misleading and untruthful
"substitute" copy was freely accepted by nearly all media. The package
labels were as bad, if not worse. With the advent of the pure food law
of 1906, the cereal label abuse was reformed; but not until the "truth
in advertising" movement became a power to be reckoned with, nearly ten
years later, were the coffee men granted a substantial measure of
protection in the magazines and newspapers. Meanwhile, many coffee men,
lacking organization and a knowledge of the facts about coffee,
unwittingly played into the hands of the substitute-fakers by publishing
unfortunate defensive copy which made confusion worse confounded in the
consumer's mind.

[Illustration: REVERSE SIDE OF THE ARBUCKLE HANDBILL (IN COLORS) OF
1872]

[Illustration: A ST. LOUIS HANDBILL OF 1854]

At one time there were nearly one hundred coffee-substitute concerns
engaged in a bitter, untruthful campaign directed against coffee. The
most conspicuous offender employed the principle of auto-suggestion and
found a goodly number of pseudo-physicians and bright advertisin