Based on the corpus of advertisements compiled from Russian provincial newspapers of late nineteenth century the paper with an infinitive preceded by the verb 'vinuzhdat' 'to compel' in the finite form is used to minimize pressure on the recipient of the advertising text whenever a request is employed; on the contrary, the canonical performatives with the verbs 'sovetovat' (to advise), 'recomendovat' (to recommend) signals the authority of the advertiser. The distribution of the patterns with the performatives indicates that while the informative function is significant in the period under investigation the advertisers start influencing the recipients by emphasizing their knowledge and