Picture Postcards.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 24, 9 December 1908, Page 42

Picture Postcards.

It is a peculiarity of the French that they are extremely jealous of their reputation for invention. No matter what is the thing in question, whether it be a flying machine or the use of tobacco, the French Press will invariably claim that a Frenchman had the first idea of it. It was mentioned one day in one of the Parisian papers that-a German was the first to think of the picture-postcard. The French Press have now unearthed a bookseller named Bernardeau, who claims to have invented the picture-post-card during the Franco-German war, and says that they were the first ever used. Bcrnardeau’s cards, which he sold to the soldiers of the Army of the Sarthe in camp, were decorated with a little picture of the camp and the inscription ‘‘Souvenir of the National Defence.” .Beneath this were the words “Family, Honour, Fatherland, Liberty.” The cards were mostly used by the Breton soldiers, who by means of them kept their friends at home informed as to their whereabouts.