ABSTRACT
NO branch of Advertising arouses more widespread attention or awakens the ambition of more numerous people than mail-order work which means selling through the post. The goods do not necessarily travel by post, but the order comes by post. The term mail-order has been borrowed from the language spoken in the United States; but the business was not originally American. It was invented in this country, but developed to a higher general average of efficiency in the United States. But we have at all events one mail-order advertiser, my friend Mr. Walter Martin, who has carried this kind of Advertising to a higher degree of perfection than any American practitioner. He has somewhere about a quarter of a million satisfied customers, I think; for with him a mail-order customer is not a one-timer but a steady buyer. The organisation of Martins Limited is a model of efficiency, integrity, and liberality, and I shall presently tell you something about its working—1 was about to say by Mr. Martin's permission: but there has been no need, really, for me to ask his permission, for he is the most candid of advertisers. He has nothing to conceal and conceals nothing.
