THE LATEST VISITING CARDS.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 28 November 1901, Page 4

THE LATEST VISITING CARDS.

The latest and perhaps the most convincing evidence of the artificiality of the age is the new visiting card, which the cold “principle of least effort” has thrust upon us. This cheerless pasteboard satire of human nature has on its obverse side the ordinary name and address arrangements, but on the reverse installed in the four corners stand the words, “ Visit,” “ P.P.C.,” “ Condolences,” “ Felicitations.” Whichever of these you wish to convey, you thumb down its corner on the card, and send the disfigurement to your friend. The irony of it! If there has been a funeral, “ Condolences ” is turned down, and “ Felicitations,” “ P.P.C.,” etc., boldly meet the mourner's eye. If there ha» been a wedding the same incongruous effect, with an added touch of humour, is obtained. And oh ! the awful contretemps if one inadvertently thumbs down (he wrong corner, and semis “ condolences ”tc a christening and “ Felicitations '' to a funeral. This card seems the final link between the abolition of our formal hypocritical conventions and their final abolition. We hate the onus of saying what we don’t mean—we can’t get out of it —failing the push-button, let us have the turned corner. London prepared the way for the present “ minimum of exertion ” card by inaugurating the card embellished with a sterotyped phrase of the woeful or joyful “ felicitations,” “ condolences,” etc., and the acknowledgment thereof, thus saving the purchaser the trouble of writing letters. Yet England wonders why Continental nations often laugh at her.