3-082-201 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Advertisement for Pears' Soap, 1895. 'A Hundred Years. New men and methods, systems, creeds, New fabrics, nostrums, wares, Arise and pass as years roll by, Yet there's no change in Pears; Pears' toilet tablet has survived Through all the hopes and fears Involved in Time's unhalting flight Of just a hundred years. Within this soap's transparent depths There seems to be revealed The story of the century, And all its glorious yield; It tells of times of turbulence, Of laughter, and of tears, And links the past and present for A changeful hundred years. From George unto Victoria This soap has washed its way, A beautifying element That holds supremest sway; With princes and with cottagers, With artisans and peers, It's been the toilet favourite For full a hundred years. The beauties of the ancient days Of powder, puff, and patch, Kept faithful to their faithful Pears, And never found its match; And when the aged century Dies out and disappears, Pears' Soap will still be foremost as 'T has been a hundred years. Soaps white and red, and green and pink, With names of empty sound, Come and go unceasingly, The buyer to confound; Yet Pears' Soap retains its fame, While other names fall dumb, And having lived a hundred years, Will hundreds more to come'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.