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culars, that it was urgently desired that no more stamps should be sent, as the young lady had procured the number she required.

The following sketch gives some idea of the packages. One of them is a large wine hamper, another a large wine cooler, next a large clothes basket. The two latter were used to put the smaller packets in as they arrived, being altogether many bushels. Next is a packet from a great mercantile house in London, and contains 240,000 Queen's heads. There was also a tea-chest full sent from another quarter. There were nine boxes between one and two feet long, a foot wide, and about six inches deep. Smaller packets formed a heap two feet six inches long, one foot wide, and one foot six inches deep; and two baskets two feet long, one foot six inches wide, and one foot four inches deep were filled; besides which many boxes were not received but sent back to the railway station. In addition to this accumulation, letters from all quarters arrived, many from persons of the highest rank, expressing the deepest sympathy and the most kindly feeling. Numbers of them stated that large collections of heads would still be sent, if required.-Illustrated London News, May 18, 1850.

STAMP COLLECTING AND ITS USES. Ir may be, and often is, objected,— ‘Of what use is stamp collecting? The writer is ready to admit that it is not the most beneficial occupation of time; but still believes it may claim the merit of being instructive, and that as an evidence of the advance in civilisation of the nations using them, postage stamps are not without interest. The newlyissued Turkish stamps are a visible proof of the onward progress of that barbaric power, and of its wish for more extended intercourse. When Captain Cooke landed at Otaheite,* he little imagined that in less than a century after, the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands would have so far advanced as to require postage stamps to facilitate their correspondence. Yet such is the case: the half-length portrait of the king of the islands figures on a very respectable stamp issued at Honolulu.

The writer seems to imagine Otaheite one of the Sandwich Islands.-ED.

The black republic of Liberia, from its little. corner in Western Africa, sends forth a set of stamps which would be no disgrace to a European country, and which add another link to the chain of proof that under favourable circumstances the negro will rise. Nicaragua and Costa Rica have issued very beautiful stamps; and the very fact of their being in use, we may hope, points to a more settled state of affairs in those countries. In another direction, also, stamps are useful. They represent to the mind distant nations as actually in existence, whom we previously hardly believed in. To the juvenile, whose idea of a country is generally that it is an irregular space on a map, surrounded by coloured lines, and covered with names and black dots, and who thinks of it only as (in the words of his geography) 'bounded on the north by the Pacific Ocean, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean,' &c., stamps are especially instructive. The Bahamas, for instance, cease to be thought of as mere black-letter words; they become, in the mind of the collector, the actual residence of an industrious community. The queen's head on the Hong Kong stamps shows that her subjects must be there; and the Chinese figures at her side remove all shade of disbelief in the existence of that grotesque language and people, and all doubt as to whether or not the wonderful hieroglyphics on the tea chests are not daubed on by the grocers' apprentices in fits of artistic inspiration. It is, indeed, surprising how few colonies there now are which do not issue stamps. The owners of the boundless pampas of South America frank their letters with curiously-designed stamps. The British Columbian miner ensures the safe delivery of his roughly-scrawled epistle by a stamp. New Caledonia and Reunion can each boast a stamp. Disturbed Mexico has had its stamps. The Moldavian peasant ponders over the strange bit of paper which will carry his letter far away from him. colony honoured by Dr. Colenso's presence issues a very pretty portrait of our Queen. Prince Edward Island, Queensland, St. Helena, and St. Lucia have all issues of their own. Even the European's grave, Sierra Leone, is not without its emblem of civiliza

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tion. The Papal States delight in a stamp of poverty-stricken appearance; and the convict in Western Australia affixes a stamp, perforated in the centre, to his letters to distinguish them from others.

In another light, also, stamps are interesting. We notice in the successive issues of different countries and colonies a proof of improvement in the engraver's art as applied to stamp devices. The handsomest stamps are in most cases the latest issues. The earlier ones, particularly those of our colonies, being in many cases scarcely more than incomprehensible smudges, several of them having been printed from wood blocks. Probably the most beautiful stamps are those of Nova Scotia: they are of two kinds, one bearing a medallion portrait of the queen, whilst her bust is impressed on the other. Each is engraved with exquisite finish, and the effect is heightened by the simplicity of the design. G. O. 'Ï.

THE GENERAL POST-OFFICE AT
SIX O'CLOCK, P.M.

THE General Post-Office, which is regarded as the centre of the whole postal network of the kingdom, stands in St. Martin's-leGrand. It is a compact edifice, built of Portland stone, in a cold regular style, and has three porticoes supported by arches. The central portico, over which is a frieze bearing the name of George IV., leads by a flight of steps to a grand passage or hall, that runs through the whole width of the building, and opens into Foster Lane. In this passage are the boxes to receive the letters destined for the four cardinal points of the world, and behind these boxes are lofty windows, generally closed. I will, however, suppose that the time is a quarter to six P.M. The first window on the left hand, over which may be read 'For newspapers only,' is then wide open. An impetuous crowd, entering from either end of the passage, fills the hall, and the letters fall like hail into the boxes; but it is the newspaper window which will principally attract our attention. The peristyle is blockaded by a band of porters and newspaper boys, lads of twelve or thirteen years of age, employed in the service of the papers. They run up

perspiring and panting under bags full of papers, and jostle each other in spite of the efforts of the policemen, who try to maintain some degree of order in the midst of the con usion. Every moment the mob grows larger, for it is well known that the Post-Office clock is faithful and pitiless. The journals, covered with a band, fly like a flock of pigeons round the windows, hurled by a thousand hands. Sacks, packages, and baskets pour, as into an abyss, ream after ream of paper. All this falls pell-mell, thrown from the outside, and is caught in its flight, as it were, by the men inside: they empty the sacks and baskets, and then return them to their owners. It is hard work; and a policeman on duty told me that, a few years ago, before certain precautionary measures were taken, the officials had more than once had their eyes and faces blackened by the avalanche of newspapers hurled upon them. There is even a rumour that in the heat of action, a boy was one day thrown with the bundles, by mistake, into the office.

The clock begins striking six; the eager ness and thronging are redoubled; the newspapers still stream in; but, at the last stroke, the window is sharply closed. Too late!' one or two discontented laggards exclaim. Letters and papers, however, can still be sent off the same evening, the former by paying up to seven o'clock an extra penny stamp, the latter one halfpenny, as a fine inflicted for negligence. This exciting scene, called by the English the Newspaper Fair, ought especially to be seen on Friday and Monday, because these are the two days on which the weekly newspapers are sent off. For letters, the great day is Saturday, as the Post-Office is closed on Sunday, and commercial houses generally devote Saturday to their correspondence.-The English at Home.

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a narrow path,' he said, 'cut by some stalwart men through the tall, rank prairie, I wended my way in search of the post-office. At length I found an old pioneer, seated apparently in solitary rumination upon a piece of hewn timber, and inquired of him for the post-office. He replied that he was the postmaster, and would examine the office for my letters. Thereupon he removed from his head a hat, to say the least of it, somewhat veteran in appearance, and drew from its cavernous depths the coveted letters. On that day the wolves and the Omahas were the almost undisputed lords of the soil; and the entire postal system of the city was conducted in the crown of this venerable hat. To-day, our postal service, sheltered by a costly edifice, spreads its briarean arms towards north, south, east, and west,' &c; but all that goes without speaking. Omaha city is now the capital of Nebraska.

NEWLY-ISSUED, OR INEDITED
STAMPS.

'Sitting upon thorns.'- Common Saying. Ne sutor ultra crepidam.'--PHÆDRUS. 'Everything loses by translation, except a bishop.' -SYDNEY SMITH. FEELING in duty bound to afford a paper for the magazine every month under some such title as the above, in the paucity of more legitimate objects for note, we must endeavour to eke out sufficient matter from comparatively extraneous sources, to fill the requisite space in the pages assigned us.

We shall offer a few remarks applicable to each of our quotations; or rather, to which each of the quoted saws will form an appropriate motto.

With a solitary exception, the pages of collectors' albums have lately received no additions save a few impressions with change of colour, as the sixpenny Bahamas, which is now printed with a rich mauve ink; and the penny Natal, now as dark as the Bahamas of the same value. The stamps of these two colonies evidently come from the same manufactory, as proved by the die of the queen's head, the paper used, the perforations so difficult to make use of, and the antiadhesive nature of the backs. The penny Van Diemen's Land is a rich deep claret;

the twopenny Victoria a different shade of mauve; and some of the New Zealand individuals vary in colour.

The single specimen that alone redeems the postal novelties from a barren blank is the new shilling Cape of Good Hope, whose form, no longer triangular, is now what is called in the provinces, with very unmathematical want of precision, a longish square.

We believe the change of shape in the green stamp has also taken place in the sixpenny, though we have not yet seen a specimen; and conclude that the fourpenny and penny will follow suit; leaving the threepenny Newfoundland the sole representative of a triangle out of the couple of dozen hundred different varieties of postage stamps known to collectors.

In the superseded stamp, the figure of Hope, the tutelar symbol of the colony, was very comfortably reclining in the space assigned her; and she does not appear at all comfortable in her change of position, putting us in mind of the first motto at the head of our paper.

She is not, literally, sitting on thorns, but is evidently very ill at ease upon the cold, hard anchor that supports her, on the fluke of which her right arm rests. She is trying to ease herself, as one does when in a constrained position, by resting the left hand on the back of one of the handsome Cape sheep, whose fleece seems the only soft article in the group. There are the hard ground, the hard Cape mountain, the hard iron anchor, and a vine at the right of the figure, as hard as the other objects of the representation, the leaves of which give one the idea of being modelled in iron.

Our second proverb came into mind on perusal of the Post-Office Savings Bank Almanack for the present year, in which the very trifling amount of information on the subject of postage-stamp collecting possessed by the writer is evinced by his instancing the number of fourteen hundred stamps that must be found before 'a collection is perfect.' We ourselves had-alas! that we are compelled to use the past tense-upwards of nineteen hundred; and the amateur whose choice collection some two score of ours helped to swell, numbers at present, inclusive

of proofs and essays, a thousand more than the almanack's limit to an entire collection!

The writer names the sum of six-andtwenty pounds as representing the value of a complete set of stamps. In our own nineteen hundred, six-and-twenty alone would have commanded that amount in any stamp market! An absurd climax is reached by the quotation of the postage currency stamp of the United States as the most interesting of the whole series. We dare say it is in the land of the almighty dollar, though it enters a few collectors' albums on sufferance only here.

The following extract from the London Journal of January 16th, testifies to the truth of the saying of the witty divine constituting our last quotation:The cheapest postage stamp is the 1-centime French; the dearest is the Horse-post of California, 4 dollars (21 francs); the best engraved are those of France, Greece, and particularly that of New Caledonia (!!), which merits the first place; the ugliest are those of Belgium and the English penny; the largest are those of Siberia (!!); and the smallest, one of Mecklenburg, bearing the head of an ox.'

This astounding paragraph is apparently a translation from a translation; and we should have found some difficulty in grasping at the meaning of the original through the thorns and briars of the misapprehension of one or both of the translators, had we not recognised a sentence of our own, extracted from an early number of this magazine, through the distorted media before us.

A German magazine did us the honour of translating our remarks; and Horse-post is a free rendering of the foreign equivalent for Pony Express. The unrecorded stamp of Siberia was a sufficient excuse for introducing the matter in this part of the magazine; though the veriest tyro will readily apprehend the clerical misprint of that country in lieu of Liberia, the stamps of which are indeed among the largest issues; but we were almost floored at the audacious claim of the hideous stamp of New Caledonia to the palm of beauty, till we recollected that the German equivalent for that island-thus causing the amusing blunder-will equally answer, as it was of course intended to do,

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newly-discovered rarities.

We possess another stamp which has till lately most marvellously escaped the researches of collectors, and which we have seen quoted in one manuscript continental catalogue only. It is a Spanish of the issue of 1857, value 12 cuartos; the colour is a rich bright vermilion.

The annexed engraving represents a stamp recently issued by the Confederate States of America, and has already been fully described in a previous number.

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This paper will not be 10 CENTS SO barren in notice of newly-issued stamps as we expected when penning the early part. We have just met with a new series of the New Granada or United States of Columbia stamps. They are four in number; in colours and values the same as the preceding issue; but the shield and branches are white on coloured, in lieu of colour on white ground; and the four vacant corners of the stamps are filled with a sort of fleur-de-lis device. We saw the red 20 c. of this series some time since, but were not sufficiently assured of its authenticity to introduce it to notice.

Engravings of the new 4 cuartos stamp for Spain, and the threepenny scarlet Mauritius-both of which were referred to in our last number-are here presented to our readers.

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SKETCHES OF THE LESS-KNOWN

STAMP COUNTRIES.

BY C. W. VINER, A.M., PH.D.
III. THE DANUBIAN PRINCIPALITIES.

MOLDAVIA AND WALLACHIA.

THE famous astrologer of the sixteenth century, Cornelius Agrippa, is related to have possessed a wonderful mirror, in which his art enabled him to revive the images of the deceased for the gratification of their surviving friends. One evening, he was visited by a stranger in Asiatic costume, desiring the exercise of his power in raising to view the shade of Miriam, his beloved daughter. After some preliminaries, Agrippa bade him name how long he had mourned her death, as his wand must be waved once before the mirror for each ten years that had elapsed.

'Wave on,' was the reply, 'and see that thy hand tire not.' A period representing nearly fifteen centuries passed on ere the amazed magician beheld the mist disperse from the polished surface, and expose to view the resuscitated form of the beautiful and long-regretted daughter of the Wandering Jew.

For many a decade more must the magician's wand have waved ere he could have raised the phantom of one of the earliest historically known inhabitants of the countries now represented by the pair of uncouth and unartistic-looking postage stamps of which fac-similes are subjoined.

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direction. Forty years afterwards they took Lysimachus, king of Thrace, prisoner during an aggressive attack of that monarch; and Dromichetes, the sovereign of the country, generously restoring the royal captive to liberty, was rewarded with the hand of his daughter in marriage.

These Getæ, better known by the name of Dacians, not very long afterwards were themselves defeated by the Gauls, and many of them sold as slaves to the Athenians and other Greeks. Strabo tells us that the Daci were originally called Davi; and etymologists add that by some extraordinary process of interchange of letters, c and are found to be convertible, and instance the English words quick as synonymous with vivus, and twelve with duodecim! However this may be, we frequently find the name Davus applied to a slave in the Latin plays of Terence, and in other authors, where their innate northern astuteness is so curiously evinced by outwitting their ostensibly more civilized masters.

It is owing to the exile of the poet among the barbarous Geta-though the actual spot where he lived and died in banishment from the bitterly-regretted refinement of imperial Rome, is without the boundaries of the region we are actually commemorating that we owe the beautiful and pathetic Tristia of Ovid. The peasants of the district still hold the tradition that ages ago a man of honeyed words died among their ancestors, vainly entreating with his last breath that his remains might be transported to his yearned-for home; and it is not improbable that relics of the poem he composed in the Getian tongue, may yet exist in the traditionally-preserved household rhymes of the region.

To the early emperors of Rome, the warlike Dacians proved formidable antagonists. Tiberius got some slight advantage over them; but an expedition under one of the Cato family was signally defeated; and the tyrannical coward Domitian, after agreeing to pay them an annual tribute, named himself Dacicus, as having achieved a conquest. Trajan, however, after having constructed the wonderful bridge across the Danube, some remains of which exist to

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