The sun., 1903-11-22
DORTRAlTS FOR ALL
! THE WORLD.
It Takes Ten Minutes to Make One
and They Are Not So Bad
as They Night Be.

The man was making crayon portraits.
It was lightning process.
! He squirted on a little crayon juice,
| smeared 1t over the face. touched up the
eyes. the lips. the ears, rubbed in cloud
Of background with his first and second
fingers. laid it aside and took up another.
Portraits were piled as thick about his
studio as briars In Juno bla clsberry patch.
As he worked he talked
at used to be-" said he, shat crayon
portraits we're labor Of days Now they
are the work Of minutes. It's all owing
TO the solar prints.
Its more O business now than an art
though so far IA the likeness Is concerned
the solar print is far ahead of many Of those
| old freehand drawings done by inferior
artists twenty years ago. At least, the
solar print is likeness which stays there
unless we take it out.
Every State In the Union is covered
with our men. We sell crayon portraits
from Maine to California. Nobody with a
hankering after a crayon reproduction Of
his countenance Ia allowed to 60 without
one, and you can see by the stacks Of por-
traits in this studio how many harbor that
hankering.
"We have our agents in every little town,
taking orders and distributing the pictures
From the towns they go into the country.
securing it, driving about from farmhouse
to farmhouse In their little sidebar buggies,
here, there and everywhere.
First they take orders The get little
faded, old fashioned pictures OF people
dead or alive, daguerreotypes, tintypes-
anything with face. They send these to
New York or Chicago to have solar prints
made of them.
"The big houses there make these prints.
Then they send them to us to finish"
And he finished another. 1t took him
exactly ten minutes by the clock to execute
the finish OF this portrait. which was that
of negro with thick lips and eyes con-
sisting principally OF whites.
ave artists get so cents apiece for the
portraits, he continued. "The house gets
s. for them, framed. 1t doesn't seem
much, but when you think OF the thousands
they sell it is different.
The work ia carried on wholesale. We
make the portraits and the agents oe-
liver them to our customers.
-ihey give tie orders tor the frames
to any wholesale house in the largest town
of the State. These frames are sent direct
To some little town.
packages Of portraits. He stops at board
ing house and engages a room.
Then lie goes to the freight depot, gY
his frames, has them cent to his room,
hires some one to help lin and frames ali
framing them he hires bis little sidebar
buggy and starts out to gen the money for
them.
This il not 80 easy as it would seem
at first blush, He has good deal Of diff
hcmty in collecting it, particularly from
the negroes.
"ln the South it ia the negro who wants
his crayon portrait he and The poor white.
Simple, poor people always want thcn
selves reproduced. that is to say, perpetp'
ated in orayon portraits, l don't krr"
why.
Anyway, he starts OF, say. to find Sam
johnson. It's a curious thing, but you
ask negro where his friend is and he never
to xs bs oHs Esi to o smpogG p soe rsS
say: sy;no van .rox r,,or. s,n, ,o,.,,,
lives7'
And he'll open his mouth and stare at
you blankly without replying, or he'll
answer your nlestion with another: 'Whu,
dat you say, NJ 9telf he will ask.
You repeat tho question, with the same
result.
IF you stood there until doomsday,
he wouldn't tell you, He's afraid you are
a const able come after Sam Johnson; and
if you ketch him alive, you've got to walk
over his dead body No. You must 60
at him like this, in a roundabout manner
picturesque and suave;
i've got portrait Of sam Johnson
here in this buggy Car you tell me where
can find h!m' Do you know where he
lives?'
He Immediately wilkes up.
W., oh; ,.,h he ss1 cries, ,Isa sam Johnson John on
I know whar Sam johnson Ibis, He ib
right 'roun' de cornah dar up de hill Ill.
in de fust. va l'e- house you come to.
Straight ahead. Mister. Dat whar Sam
johnson lib
"But il you think you've arrived at the
end of your trouble in finding the house
that's where you are mistaken, When you
find Sam johnson It is necessary to 60 the
most circuitous possible way round in order
identity.
You must prove that your intentions are
strictly honorable; that vow are not onto
the chickens he has been stealing, and are
not going to put him in jail When you
have at length overcome this difficulty
the thing TO do is 10 make him cough up the
money.
This is not the easiest thing in the world
TO do, either. He'll take tho picture and
look at it. Then hell begin something
like this:
Whut you come fotchin' dis heah-
pictur' round hcah for. Mister2 You know
ain't got no money.
This seems TO be unanswerable. but 1t
isn't. His superstitions must be orked on.
You go about 1t something In this fashion:
Now look hero, Sam. yon say. You