FOR STAMP COLLECTORS

Evening Star, Issue 23324, 21 July 1939, Page 3

FOR STAMP COLLECTORS

i [By Philatelist.]

PORTRAIT STAMPS. Some interesting remarks on portrait stamps are contained in an article on ‘ New Designs on Parade ’ by Ray Porter in the ‘ Australian Stamp Monthly.’ He writes:— 1 A ‘ Dictionary of Biographies Over) Personalities Depicted on the World’s' Postage Stamps * was published in Eng- | liah in 1937, and this thin- volume of some 200 pages, compiled by a Swedish! philatelist,- Fredrik Arsenins, contains | between its Covers short biographies of j some 1;340 personalities with reproductions of the stamps depicting them. | This was the, number of personalities portrayed on stamps issued up to April, 1935, and no doubt a few hundred more have been the subject of various postal issues since that date. The col-| lectihg of portrait stamps may not -be philately in its strictest sense, but it can provide as fascinating and educa- ■ tional a hobby as. any other now in ’ existence. I have seen one such superb collection containing over 1,000 person-1 alities, and although it was built up ’ during a period of some 10 years, the total amount of work spent on such a compilation must have been enormous, to say the least of it. Each stamp depicting a personality was mounted in the top right-hand corner of "a ■ thin white flexible card, about 2Jin x oin (suitable for inserting into a typewriter). The “ write up ” occupied the remainder of the space. Al-; though neat handwriting may prove : quite satisfactory, there is nothing, equal, in my humble opinion, to the! typewritten text, both for neatness and j uniformity. I hope that this may gain I • few enthusiasts for portrait stamps. Glancing through the latest postal emissions, I find three such portrait stamps, each of which depicts a personality .that has added much to the sum total of human happiness. Florence Nightingale—the Lady with the| Lamp-=-has at last been portrayed oni a. postage stamp of the recent Belgian Red Cross series. She was born in Florence in 1820, and her name became dear to every British heart during the | Crimean War, when, with a staff of i 38 nurses, she set out to save as many | of the wounded soldiers ns was humanly., possible in those days. To appreciate fully the importance of her activities' it must be remembered that there were no military hospitals to speak of during this period, and those who were wounded on the battlefields were moro often than not left to die of their ) wounds. Even the semblances of bos- 1 pitals that existed then were nothing more than sheds over-run by vermin and pests, where wounded were heaped with no adequate medical facilities and supplies to relieve their sufferings. Florence Nightingale remedied all this. At her own expense, and working 20 hours a day, she managed to have proper hospital accommodation erected; adequate medical supplies were also made available, and after the Crimean; War, when she saw the last wounded j soldier safely shipped to his home in 1 England, she < was looked upon as a j national heroine. A fund was opened , in recognition of her services, and the j £40,000 realised enabled her to estab- j. lish a training school for nurses. It j was under her guidance that modern nursing as we know it to-day-came into being. She died on August 13, 1910, at the age of 90. And now let us turn to Sweden, where another recent stamp pictures a man who, in his own sphere, has added much to the improvement of humanity’s

health. Tho hundredth anniversary of the death of Pehr Henrik Ling has been commemorated by two stamps both producing his portrait. P. H. Ling’s early life was spent in Sweden, which had' reached tho lowest standard of national , life. V Internal strife and foreign influences turned the people from their simple mode of living to pleasure seeking and flippancy. The Swedes were in danger of losing their physical distinction of being the finest white race on earth. P. 11. Ling saw the necessity of .the revival of the physical fitness of his people, and to this end he worked out a system of physical training based on an, intimate study of the anatomy. His training as fencing master at Lund University was of great use to him in this task. His efforts were most successful, for within a short time tho whole country was dotted with gymnastic clubs' where physical fitness was the goal of all activity. Thus began, as an exclusively national movement, the Ling system of gymnastics, which is now employed throughout the world, and no doubt many an upright and atldetic figure'one sees nowadays owes much to the originator of the system. This year’s centenary celebrations include an international gymnastic festival at the Swedish capital, to be known as the Stockholm Lingiad. The third personality is supplied by Russia, where the 123 th anniversary of the Ukrainian poet and painter, X. G. Shevchenko, is now being' celebrated. Three stamps portraying Shevchenko _in his youth and middle age and his monument in Kharkov respectively have been issued in Russia. This truly national poet of the Ukraine was born in 1814 in the condition of a serf, and did not get his freedom till some time after he had reached manhood, when lie was purchased from his master by the efforts of several of his literary friends In his youth he listened to the village traditions, and he has faithfully repro duced them in his poetical works. Besides _poeti’y he occupied himself with painting with considerable success. He unfortunately became obnoxious to the Government and suffered 10 years’ exile in Siberia. On his return he enjoyed only four years of freedom and died in 1861 at the age of 46.