The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-09-28
VISITING CARDS.
something About Which Great
Many People are Interested.
From the Ne,o York Home Journal.


Fro1,a the Ne,G York Home Journal
II is not easy TO determine with precision
xvbere and when visiting and invitation
cards originated in Europe. In reality they
yera not SO much a matter of invention as
IF evolution. The first person who utilized
the white back of a playing card to write
israTe on when he failed to find his friend
at home: or to leave u message or invita-
,e+ion for him, would, were he known. be
entitled to the title of Inventor" We
know that in England these cards had their
origin in the way indicated. DR.. Charlton.
in EnGlish Notes and Queries, says that
in examining a lot Of Old papers he cams
across a number of such cards dated l153-
1894. many Of which were printed from ele-
cant English cooper plates on tine backs of
Old playing cards.
The visiting cards were small, the cards
having been cut, and those of the earl and
countess Of Northumberland were printed
on the back of the trey of clubs and Of the
Queen of diamonds. respectively. The in
yitations to card parties, printed from cop
per plates, were large enough to cover the
whole back of playing card. The duchess
of Graftons card Is printed on the back of
the ace Of hearts, and the Lady Northum-
berland's on the back of the ten of spades
and ten of hearts. AT the bottom of the
latter a re added the words: without
hoops if agreeable" 1t is presumed the
hinge hoops of those days impeded access to
the card table. 1t would appear that the
use of such invitation cards, especially in
connection with card parties, had become
established in London in the first half of
the eighteenth century. Previously, invita-
tions to such parties were wont to be sent
verbally through servants. The writing
on the backs of playing cards was to prevent
mistakes as well as from an appreciation of
the symbolical appropriateness of the form
used.
Cardboard proper, as we knew it, had not
vet been invented. The custom was found
convenient and so was extended to calling
cards and became fashionable Some thirty
five years ago house in Dean street, Soho,
the residence of either Hogarth 1898 1904
or his father-in-law. was in course of re-
pair On removing a marble chimney
piece in the front drawing-room four or
five playing cards were found, on the back
of which names were written-one that of
Sir Isaac Newton (born 1642). 1t has been
coujectured these were visiting cards, but
it is really doubtful whether the philoso-
pher would have employed such. Might
they not have been produced by the artist
as studies for his art? In plate four, of his
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS." several such cards
are represented lying on the floor in the
right-hand corner of the picture. On one,
the painter, with his wonted caustic humor,
has satirized the ignorance of the upper
classes by inscribing on it the following
ingeniously misspelled polite inquiry:
count Basset begs to no how Lade
Squander sleapt last mite"
In a novel called the Spiritual Quixote,"
published in Bath in 1766-the scenes being
laid in that city in the time of Beau Nash,
who died in 1760-a preacher is called TO &C.
count because, while he is continually IN
Weighing against gaming, he has in his
pocket pack of soiled cards ready for his
engagements or pleasures. A note says:
"a set of blank cards has since been in
vented by which the above absurdities may
be avoided" This note seems to date the
substitution of visiting cards proper for in
scribed playing cards. Nor must we over
look the passage in chapter xii. of "St.
Rowan's Well, " in which ''the captain pre-
sented to Lucky Dodds the fifth part of an
ordinary playing card, much grimed with
snuff. which bore on the blank side his
name and quality Whether Ben: John
SONS expression, You shall cartel him."
points to an earlier use of these cards in
affairs of honor we do not take it on our
selves TO decide.
The above may serve to indicate the
origin and development of visiting cards In
England. In this case London seems to
have shown the way to Paris, for there Wis
iting en- blanc paying visits by cards In
place of m person. did not take root till
ITO. In Venice, ON the contrary, visiting
cards were used in the latter part of the
sixteenth century, and there it was the
fashion to ornament them with engravings
of high order, the most distinguished ar
fists not disdaining to design and execute
their embellishments. A collection of such
cards is preserved i'll the museum at Venice,
pictures of some of which may be seen in
the Magazine of Art, 1884, page 275. The
fashion of having illustrated cards became
widespread, and pictorial cards were COM
mon in the last part of the eighteenth CEN
fury. That of Canova represented block
of marble rough hewn from the quarry
drawn in perspective, with his name in
scribed in large Roman capitals.
On the card of Miss Berry and her sister
ladies well-known in London society
were two nymphs in classic drapery point
ing to weed-grown slab, like tombstone,
bearing the engraving Miss Berry" One
nymph leads lamb (agnus) to typify
Agnes Berry" "In the eighteenth cen
fury, NJ says an authority, ION the continent
visiting cards were matter of taste and
art. The society of Vienna, Dresden and
Berlin piqued itself upon delicacy of taste,
and, instead of an insipid card with the
name and quality of the visitor inscribed
upon it, 1t distributed real souvenirs, charm
ing vignettes, some of which are models of
composition and engraving. The greatest
artists, Casanova, Fischer and Baritiscb did
not disdain to please fashionable people by
designing the pretty things that Raphael
Mengs engraved.
In visiting cards, as in so many other
things, China was long ages ahead of Europe.
So far back as the period of the Tong
dynasty (61S-900 such cards were in com
mon use in the "Flowery Land" From the
earliest times the Chinese have observed the
strictest ceremony in the regard to the pay
ing Of visits, the card they use being very
large and of red color.