Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-01-24

mosques. Since then other prohibitions had
been added-pictorial post cards of Chris
tan propaganda photographs Of famous
religious paintings, cards with cartoons or
other reference to the politics of Turkey or
of Europe.
Now the prohibition is extended to all
post cards bearing pictures, as the only
means Of effectually protecting the faithful
and soothing Abdul Hands conscience
Under the preceding postal rulings, cards
OF European scenery, with secondary hu-
man figures, local costumes and allegorical
or typical female figures, We're allowed to
pass, were also cards Of genre" that
represented trades and customs city street
scenes and the like. though they bore here
and there female figure.
Let us no more compromise with naugh-
tiness," says Abdul Hamid "See what q
great flame little fire may kinder
A Terrible Responsibility.
Henceforth, therefore, no pictorial post
| cards will pass through the Turkish post;
the conscience Of the more scrupulous en-
ployes will be no longer troubled in decid-
ing which cards may be lawful and which
must certainly be unlawful, and, according
to the Mussulman theology, there will re-
sutton the great and last day Of judg
ment-much less confusion and occasion for
recrimnation; for the teaching is that
every artist who has made human face
in picture will, on the supreme day, find
that picture clamoring for a soul, while all
photographers and amateurs who have
Snap-Shotted human faces will have to ar
range with their originals to content the
print-faces they have made in the same
matter! This is why good Mussulmans
will not allow their faces to be photo
graphed. They do not want to share ter
rible responsibility!
While these prudent and moral rules are
being formulated and enforced by the wise
sultan of the east, the children of the
west go calmly multiplying millions of ex-
amples of the soulless face (and being
empty of a soul, a lurking place for devils,
naturally. France, the latest of the Euro
pean countries to be infected with the
craze, sent out in the year 1909 only $780,
600 pictorial post cards. Twelve months
later the new mania had so gained on the
population that in the first ten days of jan
uary, 1902, the postal service of the Seine
alone Cancelled the stamps on 100000 of
them The account for the present month
of January, it is estimated, will go beyond
Is. 100000.
Come to Stay.
The craze seems to have come to stay in
Europe. No little German town that boasts
a modern park or ancient ruins; no Swiss
or Tyrolean village lost among the noun
tains no French or Belgian thermal sta
ton with its hotels and baccarat casino;
no cheap beach on the Atlantic coast, from
Sckeveningen to ST. Sebastien, with it's dom
key carriage and six visitors a week is so
urprogressive that it cannot afford tourists
fine choice of cards in gay colors, with
views of its monuments and attractions.
And no tourist, whether he Cor she) be
French or German, English or American,
or Spaniard, Scandinavian, Turk, Chinese
or Soudan negro, is too modest to set the
bright-colored souvenirs of travel flying to
his stay-at- home friends from each of
his nightly halts. And SO the halts get
limitlesS free advertising.
When one reflects that the natural vanity
Of every travelling fellow creature is, after
oil 1i1t
that make for the continued success of the
new craze it Is easier to believe its almost
unbelievable statistics.
"a The pictorial post card craze enjoys,
with stamp collecting, the advantage of an
international and geographical idea; and it
is instructive.
CT 1t lends itself. at the right moment to
photography and the new color processes,
in themselves the first wonders of the
dawning twentieth century.
3) 1t fuifills the general collecting craze
requirements of uniform size and well-de-
fined categories. Heretofore collectors had
attempted to deal at once with the work of
artists and color printers IN gorgeous mod
ern pictorial posters. But the posters were
found unweldy, bulky, of varying sizes and
impossible to classify The post card has
none. of these disadvantages.
Exchanging Cards.
The latest development of the craze is the
formation Of correspondence and exchange
clubs, to unite collectors; and SO have the
clubs grown that all Europe Is now COW
cred with their international network. Here
was anothec reason for the sultan to COM
plete his prohibition. He does not want
his already advanced young Turks to ge
into correspondence with worse radicals and
progrt ssonists in foreign lands; and less
still does he desire to have the faith III
deluged with pictorial suggestions from
lands governed differently from mis- own!
Az the new craze has its clubs, so 1t has