The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1908-12-12
Popular Fad Promises to Go Far
Toward Making Department
SeIf-SuppOrting.
SALE OF STAMPS ENORMOUS
Device Used by Tourists Il Educat-
ing the People on Places OF the
World Worth Seeing.

The picture or souvenir pOStal caru
Is probably doing more to make the
world known to the untraveled man
than all the biographies and gazetters,
says the New York Sun. There is
scarcely a village anywhere in the do
main of the postal union that has not
had its picture taken for postal card
impression in black or white or In
cOlOrs, and thus it's humble fame has
been carried over seas and introduced
to the four corners of the union. All
the aliens and prOdigal sons cannot re-
turn for the old home week celebra-
lions, but, thanks to the man who In
vented the picture postal card, they
may be reminded Of the old home
scenes at an expenditure of few cents.
A manufacturing firm in Newark re-
ports that in one week 1,5OO picture
postals were left at the establishment
for the employees. These cards were
passed from bench to bench to be ad-
mired, and the practice interfered 20
much with the work to be done that the
firm notified it's employees that no more
mail could be received on the premises.
An insurance company, shoe shop and
a corset factory in Newark had to
make the same rule.
The sale of 1-cent stamps to put on
these picture cards has become enor-
nous. SO congested have the mails be
come with them that the carriers In
hoh ind in, fhcir
deliveries. The vacation postoffices are
swamped Thousands Of cards never
reach their destination. 1t is not to be
supposed that they are distracted from
the mails, for nothing could be cheaper
than specimens Of the new art. We
suspect that the overburdened and dis
traught sorters in the railway post
Office cars sometimes lose a bundle of
cards in sheer desperation by design.
Flesh and blood cannot Withstand the
pictorial deluge. 1t is wonderful that
the faithful servants who have to face
the ever-mounting combers of two-for-
five souvenirs retain their sanity.
In cities of the first class the post
office clerks handle thousands Of the
cards every day. The transportation
and delivery Of them has become an
embarrassing question. 1t would not
be surprising If congress were asked to
Increase a service made "groggy" by
the extra work which the habit causes.
We should like to know how much the
department is ahead of the game by the
sale of 1-cent stamps to carry the cards.
In a day when it has a deficit to re-
port it cannot afford to discourage such
a development Of popular art. There
are so many new varieties Of picture
cards designed every day that If the
fashion continues to advance by leaps
and bounds it may not be long before
the postoffice department will be SELF
supporting in spite Of the immense
sums paid to the railroads for trans
portation.
Every crossroads store now has a
case full of picture postals; they are
a part of the equipment Of every sum-
mer hotel: on the trains they sell in
sets in the larger cities they are the
street peddler makes a living out of
them: they are the continuous chain
between the vacationists and the stay
at homes: albums are filled with them
by the artistic as well as by the SEN
timental: they flood the land with
mighty tide Of color; the works of the
old masters, the conceits Of comic art
lists, the solicitations of the advertising
+. tribe, everything pictorial that may hit
the popular taste or fill "long-felt
want is now exploited by the cheap
and convenient postal card, which at
the same time may carry a message or
a salutation from the sender on the
address as well as on the picture side.
There is a great subject for the indus
'trious literary hack in the rise and
spread of the illustrated postal card.
In time it will have literature of it's
own.
TRAGEDIES IN MOVING VANS.