The Darkest Ad of 1901

Everyone has a favorite commercial or one that they simply cannot stand. But how about one that is so dark that it almost leaves you speechless?

Today, I want to share with you one of the darkest ads I have ever seen and it was published in 1901.

Hung by the Neck.

Is this a notice of a hanging or an ad for rope?

No. It is an ad for neckties.

And then, if you can believe it, on this same page is an article about a hanging.

Now, hold on a second. As someone once pointed out to me, there is a difference between “hanged” and “hung.” People don’t get hung, they get hanged.

And I completely agree with the gentleman who mentioned it.

However…

“Just before Charles Brown was hung this morning for the murder of Washington Hunter…”

Do you think maybe they just put him up on a clothesline?

Or how about this one?

“Sinister threats ‘The first man who squeals is the next man hung.”

Here’s my personal favorite:

“Unidentified man hung self from tree.”

But now I am way off-course.

Why might this necktie ad be so sinister aside from the obvious hanging report?

Well, let’s take a look.

“Decomposed to the extent the joints were disconnected and the flesh slipping from the bones, the body of Ekeroth was found within the city limits of Prescott…

“The despondent man had hung himself with a necktie to a scrub oak bush, the ends of the tie being fastened to the oak not more than two feet from the ground.”

That was from 1914, but this one is from 1887:

“… Farnham, aged 50 years… made a desperate attempt at suicide in a room at the United States hotel this morning. After swallowing a dose of ‘Rough on Rats’ [a rat poison] he hung himself with a necktie to the gas fixtures and turned on the gas. He became unconscious and his weight broke the gas fixtures. The smell caused by the escaping gas attracted the attention of the watchman, who broke open the door. Farnham was taken to the hospital, where it was said he would die.”

Finally, there is this sad and upsetting report made in 1911:

“Charles Pfister, almost a shadow of a man, 80 years of age, weighing barely 80 pounds, took a five cent bottle of stale milk set out to be returned from the doorstep of a grocery… Policeman Nelson saw him and promptly proceeded to wreak the vengeance of the outraged state of California and city of Los Angeles upon the feeble old man who, it developed later, intended to share the pitiful supply of pilfered milk with a cat left to starve by a rich family when it left for the seashore.

“Pfister was handcuffed. His spirit was broken. He was thrown into jail with huge gashes in his weakened wrists where the manacles had cut him under pressure exerted by the six foot officer. Then in the dark of the night the old man hung himself with his necktie.”