Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1876 — How Valentines are Made. [ARTICLE]

How Valentines are Made.

Modern valentinee, aside from the valuable presents often contained in them, are very pretty things, and they are growing Erettier every year, since large business. ouses spare neither skill nor money fa getting them np. The most interesting thing about them to “grown-ups" ia-tfm way they are made; and perhaps- even you youngsters, who watch eagerly for the postman, “ sinking beneath the load of delicate embarrassments sot his own," would like to know how satin and lac* and flowers and other dainty things grew in a valentine. Itwae no fairy’s handiwork. I* wen* through the hands of grimy-lookinr workmen and dowdy-looking girls; it made familiar acquaintance with sandpaper and glue-pots, and steel stamps-and inky presses, and paint brashes and all sorts of unpleasant things, before it reached yhur hands. To be sure, a dreamy artist may have designed it, but a lithographer witn inky fingers printed the picture part of it; a die-cutter with sleeves rolled up made a pattern in steel of the lace-work on the edge; and a dingy-lookipg pressman with a paper hat on sums pea the pattern aronnd the picture. Another hard-handed workman rubbed the back of the stamped lace with sqnd-paper till it came in holes and looked like lace, and not merely like stamped paper; sod a row of girls at a common long table—talking abeat their own narrow lives, the hard times, and to forth—put on the colors with stencils, gummed on the hearts and darts raid cupids and flowers and mirrors and doors and curtains, and stuck in the sachetpowder and tied ap the bows, and sewed on the fringes, ana tacked in the handkerchief or other gift, and otherwise finished the thing exactly like the pattern before them. Yon see, the sentiment about a valentine doesn’t begin yet. To all these workmen it is merely their daily work, and to them means only bread-and-butter and a home. It is not until Tom, Dick or Harry takes It from the stationer and writes yonr name on it, that it acquires, in some mysterious way, the sentiment that make* it such a nice thing to get. The hideous abomination called a “ comic valentine,” which is merely a cruel or a low-minded insult to the reoehrer, is beneath the notice of any gentleman, whether he’s five or fifty year* old, and I’m sure no St. Ifiehobu boy cares to know jnst how it is made.— Ottee Thane, in St. Nicholas.