Harper's Young People, February 8, 1881 / An Illustrated Weekly

by Various

Athens, Georgia.

I wish to say to the correspondents who wrote to me for exchange of postmarks that I can not answer all their letters right away, as I have received so many, but I will answer them as soon as I can.

Louis J. Brumby.

In justice to Master Louis, we state that the above letter was received at our office on December 14, 1880, but owing to the crowded state of our Post-office Box, has been pushed aside until now.

A large number of our correspondents are in the same trouble as this Georgia boy. The demands upon them are so large that they can not possibly obtain a sufficient supply of postmarks, stamps, or other things to meet them all promptly, and they are in distress, fearing that they will be thought dishonorable, when they are in reality overwhelmed by the great number of demands upon their boyish resources.

The explanation of this trouble is very simple. A boy possessing a small number of stamps and postmarks, or perhaps a shelf of pretty minerals, being anxious to obtain more, sends a request for exchange to Young People. Now the subscribers to Young People number many thousands, and the number of readers can not be estimated. A great many of these also have small collections which they are anxious to enlarge. The consequence is that the boy who has offered exchange receives to his astonishment a dozen or more letters daily, many of them containing specimens for which an immediate return is expected. Now he has started out with, say, three hundred postmarks—probably not so many—as his stock in trade, and has offered a given number from the State where he lives for the same number from any other State. The demands of the first week exhaust his small store, and even with the help of his friends he can not collect fast enough to satisfy his correspondents. He can not use those he has received, even were he willing to part with them, for they are not from the State from which he has promised specimens, so he is compelled to work slowly, and appear for the time to be neglectful and remiss in keeping his promises. Could he answer every letter, and explain how matters stood, of course all would be right. But he is a school-boy, and has lessons to learn, or is otherwise employed; and even if he has leisure, no one needs to be told that to answer a large number of letters every day is an impossible performance for a boy from ten to fifteen years old, the average limits of the age of those who offer exchange in our columns.

In view of the impossibility of promptly answering all communications, the Post-office Box is often requested to publish an explanation. Whenever it is possible, we print these boyish appeals for indulgence, but they are very often crowded out.

We are sorry to see so little reason and forbearance on the part of some boys who fail to receive answers from exchanges at the time they expect. We have received numerous complaints, to all of which we pay no attention, and which we often have positive proof are wholly unjust. We assure those boys from whom we have received such communications that they do not rise in our estimation by their hasty accusations of their correspondents, of whose circumstances or character they know nothing, beyond the mere fact that their letters to them have not been immediately answered. A boy who is himself honorable will seek excuses for his delinquent correspondent, and will never accuse him of unfairness, even in his own mind, unless he has positive proof that the charge is well founded. In future, all requests for exchange, accompanied by complaints of the delinquency of other parties, will not be noticed in our columns.

Considering the length of our exchange list, these misunderstandings have been so few that they may be classed as exceptions to the general rule. The majority of our correspondents speak in the highest terms of the fairness with which exchanges have been conducted, of the valuable additions they have made to their collections, and of the pleasant friendships they have formed.

In spite of all our good advice in the matter of full and distinctly written addresses, carelessness in this respect is still the source of some annoyance. We frequently receive letters from boys and girls who are troubled because they have received some specimen which they can not even acknowledge, as the sender omitted either name or address, sometimes both. We have no space to explain all these matters, and in such cases leave it for the careless correspondent to learn by experience the troublous results of inattention.