6d.; Covent Garden ditto, L66 11s.

The papers paid L200 a-year to each theatre for the accounts of new plays, and would reward the messenger with a shilling or half-a-crown who brought them the first copy of a playbill." In 1721, the following announcement appeared in the _Daily Post_: "The managers of Drury Lane think it proper to give notice that advertisements of their plays, by their authority, are published only in this paper and the _Daily Courant_, and that the publishers of all other papers who insert advertisements of the same plays, can do it only by some surreptitious intelligence or hearsay, which frequently leads them to commit gross errors, as, mentioning one play for another, falsely representing the parts, &c., to the misinformation of the town, and the great detriment of the said theatre." And the _Public Advertiser_ of January 1st, 1765, contains a notice: "To prevent any mistake in future in advertising the plays and entertainments of Drury Lane Theatre, the managers think it proper to declare that the playbills are inserted by their direction in this paper only." It is clear that the science of advertising was but dimly understood at this date.

Even the shopkeepers then paid for the privilege of exhibiting bills in their windows, whereas now they require to be rewarded for all exertions of this kind, by, at any rate, free admissions to the entertainments advertised, if not by a specific payment of money.

The exact date when the managers began to pay instead of receive on the score of their advertisements, is hardly to be ascertained.

Genest, in his laborious "History of the Stage," says obscurely of the year 1745: "At this time the plays were advertised at three shillings and sixpence each night or advertisement in the _General Advertiser_." It may be that the adverse systems went on together for some time.