POSTCARDS

Evening Star, Issue 19723, 25 November 1927, Page 4

POSTCARDS

The father of the postcard quite fittingly is to have his statue. Many loss important benefactors have received this honor. He is not an Englishman. Dr Emanuel Hermann was of the Military Academy of Vienna. Therein ho occupied the chair of economics, and it was when engaged in a burdensome correspondence in gathering data for his ‘Guido to the Study of National Economy ’ that the idea came to him which has saved the .world of letterwi iters a big heap of money and ages of time. Austria issued its iirst “ Kone&pondenz-Karte ” in October, 1869, Great Britain following its e> ample a year later, so the postcard is little more 'than half a century old (says the London ‘Daily Telegraph'). Some years since, as the sales have shown, the official postcard reached the height of its popularity, and its vogue has been steadily declining; it set off with a sale in its first year ot 75,000,000, a figure afterwards very largely increased, and for 40 years it represented a considerable share of post office business, it is' one of the small economies which the English people to-day do not seem greatly to value. The stringency of war time introduced the single half-sheet of notepaper as a medium upon which the most polite correspondence could be penned, conveying Ho suggestion of meanness in the sender, and that has stayed with us. It serves the purpose lor which the postcard was universally welcomed, of shortening the length ot a letter, and, being a little more liberal in the space afforded, it wears no appearance of curtncss. -Also the single sheet enclosed ensures privacy. In days when the penny carried a letter, the postcard gave a 50 per cent', reduction in fee, and, besides, the stationery was free. Now that the reduction is from three halfpence to Id and the stationery has to be paid for, the gain in its use is less. Reply postcards, in the introduction of which we were ten years behind Germany, never seem to have attracted our million-headed nublic. Where the little sheets of stiff board is supreme is in the picture postcard, which to-day seems more popular than ever, hut that necessarily is a trade production, as is the postcard lor advertising uses, with nothing official about it save the low rate of postage it enjoys. ■ V