Agony

Most famed of "agony columns" is that of the London Times. In its front page, packed tight with seven columns of classified advertisements, are found those anguished messages from "Faithful" to "L. E."; from "Heartbroken" to "Gladys." In U. S. dailies too, the "personal" is a commonplace of the classified page. But it was with some astonishment, fortnight ago, that readers of the Saturday Evening Post saw in a lower corner of a page the following advertisement:

Many believed the advertisement to be the first "agony" copy to appear in a general U. S. magazine. That was not the case. Out of innumerable applications, four similar advertisements have been accepted by the Post since 1914. The Post had first to be convinced that the person sought could not be reached in any other manner--e. g. if he were known to be a cover-to-cover Post reader and assumed to be in some farflung part of the earth. The appeal to Horace cost "Mother" $168.

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