imprisonment, hard labour, and the galleys. Every able-bodied male receiving government allowance was to labour twice a week at the public works, Confiscation and exile settled all agitators. No colonist was admitted without the permission of the society, Judgment by jury as in Great Britain and the States. Free testamentary powers. A third of all property granted was reserved for state exigencies. Non-residence not allowed; and a good house was to be erected on every estate. Ten acres must be the limit of a property; and no lands were to be purchased from the natives. The device of the public seal of the colony is in many respects identical with that of the postage stamps, There is the view of the ocean with ship under sail; the sun just emerging from the water; a flying dove holding an open scroll in its claws: a palm tree shading a plough and a spade; the words REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA below; and the national motto, THE LOVE OF LIBERTY BROUGHT US HERE, above. The national flag displays six red and five white longitudinal stripes alternately. In the upper angle of the flag is a square blue field covering five stripes, and in its centre a white star. Liberia is supposed to be one of the most productive countries on the face of the earth. Its hills and plains are ever green, affording good provender all the year round to cattle, swine, fowl, ducks, goats, and sheep. Cotton, coffee, Indian and Guinea corn, millet, rice, indigo, coffee, and the sugar cane, with abundance of fruit, grow with very trifling amount of cultivation. The principal exports at present are palm oil, dye woods, ivory, and rice, with gold, tortoise-shell, gums, hides, wax, ground nuts, ginger, and pepper.. The negro settlers seem to respond to the care that was taken for their welfare. A missionary wrote that a drunkard was a rarity in the country, nor did he ever hear an oath, or witness any desecration of the sabbath. The Scotch, even, would find nothing to cavil at in that respect, as, when on the occasion of the visit of the Prince de Joinville in a French frigate, his royal highness proposed to exchange salutes in token of his respect for the colony, the authorities declined the courtesy on account of its being the sabbath day! At different periods many of the native chiefs or kings of the vicinity have amalgamated themselves and their people with the now flourishing colony, which bids fair to radiate civilisation far into that beautiful but barbarous region. A specimen of native poetry may form an appropriate conclusion to our brief notice :- All hail, Liberia, hail! THE BLIND LETTER OFFICE, THE Blind Letter Office is the receptacle for all illegible, inisspelt, misdirected, or insufficiently-addressed letters or packets. Here the clerk or clerks, selected from amongst the most efficient and experienced officers, guess at what ordinary intelligence would readily denominate insoluble riddles. Large numbers of letters are posted daily with superscriptions which the sorters cannot decipher, and which the great majority of people would not be able to read. Others, again, are received with perhaps only the name of some small village; the writers thinking it a work of supererogation to add some neighbouring town, or even a county. Numberless, for instance, are the letters bearing such addresses as John Smith, gardener, Flowerdale,' or Throgmorton Hall, Worcestershire.' Circulars, by the thousand are posted in London and other large towns without hesitancy, and with the greatest confidence in the final-perseverance' principle of the Post-Office people, with addresses not more explicit than the foregoing. Many country gentlemen would seem to cherish the idea that the names of their mansions should be known equally far and near from their manorial acres, and somehow they seem to inoculate their correspondents with the same absurd notion. If, however, it be possible to reduce the hieroglyphics on some strange letter to ordinary every-day English, or find, from diligent search in his library of reference, information relative to imperfectly-addressed letters (information which might have been given much more easily by the senders), our readers may be sure that the cunning gentleman of the Blind Office, justly known for his patience and sagacity, will do it, unless, indeed, the letter be stone blind,' or hopelessly incomplete. As a genuine example of stone-blind letters, take the following, the first of a batch which has been known to pass through the blind-room of the General Post-Office: like manner, written on a letter improperly addressed as follows: Ann M The probability is that the last-mentioned letter will come back to the Dead Letter Office, on account of no town being given in the address; still, the usual course is to send it out to the local district designated, there being always the possibility that certain individuals may be locally known. Ashby-de-la-Zouch is a town to spell which gives infinite trouble to letter writers; but the post-office official is especially lenient and patient in cases of this kind. There are fifty different ways of spelling the name; and few letters, except those of the better classes, give it rightly spelt. Hasbedellarsuch' is the ordinary spelling among the poor living at a distance. added to their own experience and intelligence, they are generally able to put again into circulation without the necessity of opening them, five out of six of all the letters which are handed over to them. The addresses of some letters are at once seen to be the result of mistake on the part of senders. Letters addressed 'Lombard Street, Manchester,'' St. Paul's Churchyard, Liverpool,' both obviously intended for London, are sent out for trial by the letter carriers at what are believed to be their real destinations. (See Ninth Report). Letters, again, for persons of rank and eminence, dignitaries of the Church, prominent officers of the army or navy, whose correct addresses are known, or can be ascertained, are immediately sent out for delivery to their right destination, however erroneously directed, without question or examination of contents. The following strange letters, meant for the eye of royalty, would not be impeded in their progress in any way: Adams' city express post. Black imp.; oct. 2 cents yellow-brown. Black imp.; oblong. The American letter mail Co. [eagle in oval]. 2 cents black. Brattleboro V. T. P. O. 5 cents buff. Brooklyn city express post. 2 cents stone. Col. imp.; oval. Black imp.; oblong. Black imp.; rect. California penny postage from the post-office paul 5, care of the penny post Co. Col. imp.; large oblong. Blue. California penny post. Co. paid 2 to the postoffice. Col. imp. oct. " Blue. i Carrier's stamp, bust of Franklin in oval. City dispatch post. Black imp.; reet. 3 cents. 1 1 Cumming's city post. Black imp.; square. Black imp.; 2 cents yellow. Franklin city free dispatch post. oct. Green. NEWLY-ISSUED, OR INEDITED OUR last monthly paper under this title we Hall & Neill's free dispatch post.. Black imp.; tion, are, brown, blue, yel oblong. Green. low, green (represented), gnolo in colour on white. A crowned eagle to the right, holding snake's head in his mouth, right claw clutching the tail, and left claw bearing a branch. This device is in an oval frame, encroaching on the square one bound ing the stamp: ornaments in the four corners: CORREOS MEXICO above: value beneath. A correspondent informs us that, a deci mal coinage having been introduced, a new issue with the value in cents may be consequently anticipated. The Cape of Good Hope has not yet adopted the square shape for other than the shilling value; possibly because there still remains a stock of triangulars on. hand. More probably, however, the die for the shilling is worn out, and not those of the others, as the penny and sixpenny have evidently been recently printed, the colours being quite changed; that of the former is now very brown-red, and that of the latter light, instead of dark violet. Both, in fact, approach much nearer the hues of the earlier than the later issues... ( Van Diemen's Land transmits a peculiar series of similar but not identical pattern, Warwick's city dispatch post, floral bordering. printed in colour on white. The values are Black imp.; square. 2 cents green, All references are made to the fifth edition;" and where a note of interrogation is placed before the description of a stamp, it implies that there is some doubt as to its authenticity as a postage label, and any information respecting it would be acceptable. high, being half a crown, pink; five shil lings, brown; and ten shillings, yellow. The device is St. George and the Dragon, in circles of various sizes. The highest value has it in a small circle, in the centre of an oyal frame containing the name (TASMANIA) above, and monetary denomination below. The brown has it in a smaller circle, enclosed in an oblong oval garter, value marked therein. The name is above, exterior to this. The lowest yalne, bears the same device, surrounded by a circular belt nearly filling the whole field of the stamp.: Name above. These impressions are designed for bills and receipts; but we were informed they might be also used for heavy letters. We ourselves possessi an impression of the very rare old stamp of Finland here engraved, printed of a greenish-slate hue in stead of black, the usual colour. We have also noticed an individual of q STEMPEL being yet adopted, as we understand it was a sine qua non that the new series was to bear a representation of the reigning sovereign's head. It has the Belgian arms in the centre: name above: value beneath in letters, and at the four corners in figures. It is printed of a very red violet or puce colour on white; and the comparatively small portion of ground covered by the device gives the stamp a very delicate as well as effective appearance. On the coast of Venezuela, washed by the southern waters of the Caribbean Sea, are two ports La Guaira, the harbour belong ing to Caraccas, the capital, and some miles distant from it; and Puerto Cabello, in the province of Caribobo, one of the safest roadsteads in the world, said to derive its name from the circumstance that a hair (cabello) is sufficient to moor a vessel in its placid waters. These two ports, in conjunction with San Tomas, appear to have started postage stamps on their own hook, specimens of which we are about to describe. They evidently emanate from the well-known makers of the Guiana stamps; the paper employed, the colours, general appearance of the stamp, and, notably, the provokingly uneven mode of perforation, reminding one strongly of the individuals of that colony. The stamps lately emanating from New South Wales, to which we briefly alluded in our last number, are each one penny in value; one is a label, the other an envelope, principally designed for newspapers. boorboria We append an engraving of the former. The adhesive is very like the present series for India. Queen's head crowned to left, in oval band containing NEW SOUTH WALES above, value beneath : 9th ornamentation round this belt: scarlet impression on white paper. 1 The penny newspaper stamp has the head of our queen slightly in relief to the left: white on an oval scarlet ground with four white stars: NEW SOUTH WALES below, POSTAGE ONE PENNY above: an oval belt, also in white relief, and circumscribed by a scarlet line. The Hamburg local here depicted is one of a series 0% of six; and in appearance has a decided advantage CTRLESVANDIEMER over any of its legionary Guter Expedition congeners. It is printed 1 in colour on white; and the monetary denomination is very ingeniously and curiously introduced. The 1 sch. is lilac, 2 sch. yellow, 3 sch. pink, 4 sch. green, 6 sch. blue, and 8 sch. scarlet. The two we have seen are printed in colour on white; medio real, colour of the 48 cents, and dos reales, colour of the 24 cents Guiana. The date 1864 fills the four corners as in those stamps. On the left side is SAN TOMAS; on the right, LA GUAIRA; and at the bottom, Pro. CABELLO. A steamer is represented on the upper portion of the remaining space; below this is PAQUETE in a semicircle; and below that the value. We will endeavour to get one engraved next month. We received an essay from and for Belgium, which we suppose has no chance of POSTAGE-STAMP COLLECTING IN ITALY. [The following translation of a letter from a correspondent in Turin to the publisher of the Timbre-Poste may not be uninteresting to our readers, as illustrating the spread of the movement.-ED.] POSTAGE-STAMP collectors are not very numerous as yet in Italy; perhaps something under a dozen in Turin; about the same |