Camas Prairie chronicle. [volume] (Cottonwood, Idaho) 1901-1917, 1909-03-05
SOUVENIR POST CARDS
Popular Fad Promises to Go Far
Toward Making Department
SeIf-SuppOrting.
SALE OF STAMPS ENORMOUS
Device Used by Tourists Is Educat-
ing the People on Places of the
World Worth Seeing.

The picture or souvenir postal card
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 prodlgal 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 1900 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 its employees that no more
mail could be received on the premises.
An insurance company, a shoe shop and
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
many cities are days behind in their
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 moi
be surprising If congress were asked tC
Increase a service made "groggy" by
} the extra work which the habit causes
We should like to know how much th(
department is ahead of the game by the
sale of 1-cent stamps to carry the cards
In day when 1t has a deficit to re
port it cannot afford to discourage sucl
development Of popular art. There
} are so many new varieties of picture
cards designed every day that If thu
. fashion continues to advance by leap
} and bounds 1t may not be long before
, the postoffice department will be self
supporting in spite OF the immense
) sums paid to the railroads for trans
j, rnr+qtion.
; Every crossroads store now has
case full of picture postals; they arr
part of the equipment of every sum
mer hotel; on the trains they sell II
; sets in the larger cities they are tn,
= sole STOCK OF SOME OF tue SUITES III
street peddler makes a living out o
= them; they are the continuous chair
between the vacationists and the sta.
= at homes albums are filled with then
by the artistic as well as by the sen
r timental; they flood the land with
: mighty tide of color; the works Of tn
old masters, the conceits Of comic art
t lists, the solicitations of the advertiser
tribe, everything pictorial that may hi
Y the popular taste or fill a "long-fel
want" is now exploited by the chea
and convenient postal card, which q
the same time may carry a message O
!; salutation from the sender on tn
address as well as on the picture sid'
y There is a great subject for the indus
. trious literary hack in the rise an
!. 1pread of the illustrated postal care
In time 1t will have literature Of II
d own