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Show THE by W.EAHCHINBAUGII MB. IT PUBLICITY MAN One of my former class mates at High School, drifted to New York and became a publicity a-gent. a-gent. If ever a man was gifted with, a vivid Imagination and the ability to impress people with the value of the odd things which he proposed to do to stimulate business, busi-ness, it was Becker. For some reason which he alone knew, he favored bears in helping him put across his numerous publicity pub-licity stunts. His first appearance with one of these trained animals startled the whole town and brought the article he was advertising adver-tising great publicity. In the days of which I speak, all the street cars of New York were operated by cables a cable-car, containing the mechanism adapted to grip the cable running in the slot, being ahead of the passenger car. Followed by his enormous bear which he rented from an Italian bearing an announcement on either of its sides, Becker would enter the car, the bear trudging behind him, with the result re-sult that the passengers immediately immed-iately left and a mild panic ensued. en-sued. He kept at this until the police po-lice stopped him, but he accomplished accom-plished hi spurpose and the entire town knew about the product he was publicising. He told me that his ingenious efforts were not appreciated by the small town in which we resided re-sided so he came to New York, and purchased a tame black bear from a Maine trapper. Securing the advertising account of an unknown un-known brand of champagne he guaranteed to increase its sale through the medium of this more or less mild bruin. A leather collar was placed about its neck, adapted to hold four champagne bottles of the brand to be featured, and one morning at about two o'clock, when the streets were deserted in lower New York, the animal was taken down town and released at the head of Wall Street a real bear in Wall Street. Of course Becker expected the papers to be filled with the story of a bear walking about Wall Street, but for three days there was no mention of the animal or the champagne. The fourth morning, morn-ing, a tipsy individual, about eight a. m., saw a bear, with four botles of champagne about its neck crawling out of a brick tomb in Trinity Church Yard. He emitted emit-ted a yell and began to run, followed fol-lowed by the animal. One of the bottles about its neck hit an iron fence post in the cemetery and exploded, upsetting the bear, and the poor thing rolled over and over the other bottles exploded, and there was a live, mad bear in Wall Street, sure enough. It howled, bit at people, raced down the street, turned around, bit itself and started in to fight the world. Pandemonium reigned. Hysterical Hyster-ical crowds ran for shelter. Women Wo-men fainted. Horses ran away. The police came and finally shot the bear, and the bear and the champagne attained much publicity, publi-city, only to lose all possibilities og gaining a market, owing to the dawn of prohibition. |