Perth Amboy evening news., 1903-10-16
THE ESTHETIC R
Should Issue Hand-Painted
Stamps.

The esthetic girl frowned as she took
the letter a maid brought in, and after
she had run over its contents and re-
turned the sheets to their envelope her
delicate brows contracted again. She
looked fixedly at the envelope and muir
nured: 1T really is time something
was done about it,"
Il hope you've had no bad news" ven
tured a sympathetic friend, relates the
Brooklyn Eagle.
mo; l was just reminded of
thing. Do you remember that dreadful
bazaar fire in Paris, ONE years ago?
happened to be in the city at the time.
The bodies of the victims were carried
to the Champs de Mars the morning
after the fire. AS | stood in the immense
crowd outside, watching the relatives
and friends enter to identify the victims,
two deliberately dressed women went
in past the guarded entrance. One of
them wore a bright red hat and lifted
her skirt unnecessarily high over a scar
let silk petticoat. 'Hemi' ironically
calculated a brawny peasant woman at
my elbow, Mails VOLTA DIES toilettes pour
visiter les morts!'"
They certainly weren't appropriate
toilets to visit the dead in," assented the
sympathetic friend, "but is there any
connection between the fact and that
letter of yours?"
The esthetic girl rearranged the folds
IF her tnhonoa hrouD VOW, rrI.al ~
actly matched her hair, and adjusted the
string of amber beads about her neck
before she replied:
We'll, this letter is just as absurd,in
its way as that in a red hat at
the scene of mourning. Doesn't it jar
on your artistic sense to see that broad
b~lack-banded envelope with a bright red
stamp in n corner? It's an insult to
the esthetic taste of the nation for the
government to force us to such atroc-
tiles" y
NOW, what I would suggest is that
the postal authorities should issue
mourning stamps. They might be of
appropriate design, urns and weeping
WILLOWS and that sort of thing, or even
those everlasting old fathers of the
country done in black would be some
Improvement.
d you know I've given up using
mauve stationery because it was so ex-
pensive. Doesn't cost more than other
colors. No, but the stamps do. Of
course, | couldn't dream of putting a
horrid red stamp on a heliotrope en-
velope, SO | had to buy three-cent
stamps. They matched beautifully.
Think what a joy it would be if, in
stead of buying those odious little red
oblongs, n could get postage stamps
in assorted colOrs, beautifully tinted.
The idea opens out limitless POSSIBLE
tiles, too, in the way of suitable designs
for different occasions. There might
even be expensive hand-painted stamps
for aristocrats who dislike to use what
the common herd does. And the lover
should be able to send the beloved OBJ
ject letters stamped with hearts and
cupids."
The sympathetic friend thought the
scheme Just lovely" and the esthetic
girl went on rapturously:
Don't you believe we women could
start a petition Chat seems to be the
way they do things n~owadays) and send
1t to the president! We'd call it the
modern stamp act; nothing to do with
stupid tea as in the old days, but purely
for arts sake. You know the stamps
could be made an art education for the
masses. | declare I'll agitate the matter
at the next meeting of the A. A. 's-Ar-
tistic Advancement Club