Ancestor of Pictorial Postcards

1910

It was in Switzerland that the mania for pictorial postcards first arose, and we well remember the astonishment evoked some dozen years ago at seeing at the Theodule Hut the excitement of a party of Germans upon their ascertaining that they could dispatch thence, via Italy, a sheaf of views of the Matterhorn.

If one may judge from the very interesting collection of old Alpine prints now on view at the Alpine club, Saville Row, our ancestors were also eager to carry away souvenirs of scenes unlike any to which they were accustomed, and of which the terrors and dangers were doubtless not unexaggerated. And so the Swiss, who were among the earliest to exploit colored engravings, provided them with material with a sufficient spice of exaggeration to satisfy those who stayed at home.

These they dedicated to the "amateurs of the marvels of nature," and for them they crowded into a single landscape a dozen Staubbachs, and any number of aiguilles and glaciers, with artists portraying them and peasants holding festival beneath them. — London Globe.