The dies, of course, vary greatly in devices, | for reasons that will be obvious, when it is and many niceties of adjustment are neces- considered how quickly the papers are dissary to suit the size and thickness of the doc-tributed to our breakfast-tables as soon as the ument to be stamped. This, however, is per-printing is completed. The newspaper prohaps mechanically considered, the most sim-prietors send reams of paper to the Stamp ple of the stamping processes, although it Office, cause each sheet to be stamped, pay brings in by far the largest amount of money for the stamping, and then fetch them away for individual stamps. If we remember rightly, by horse and cart, or by any other means.the executors of a celebrated London gold- From Monday morning to Saturday night, smith, paid £20,000 for stamping the probate there is thus an incessant arrival and deparof a will- -a creation of twenty thousand ture of bales of paper for the newspapers, to pounds' worth of wealth to the treasury, by suit the various morning, evening, and weekone blow of the stamping-press. ly issues.

Pass we on to newspapers. Every one This kind of stamping has recently underknows, that at one corner of every newspaper gone a signal improvement. Until lately, all a red stamp appears-commonplace in its ap- was performed by hand process, and some of pearance, and a blot when mixed up with the it is still so conducted. A man is stationed at black printing. The die employed in this a kind of table, on which a heap of paper is kind of stamping, has often certain movable placed; he holds in his right hand a metal die pieces, which can be changed from time to affixed to a small boxwood handle; while near time-indeed, such is the case in many other him is a bowl containing several layers of dies, where the price of the stamp, or the day flannel satured with red printing-ink. He of issue is indicated. But whether changed dabs the die upon the ink-bowl, and then or not, the die stamps the name of the news- dabs it upon one corner of a sheet of paper, paper. For instance, if we look at the second and the stamping is done. This is all a specpage of any number of the Illustrated News, tator can see; but there are sundry little we see a sort of heraldic device stamped in movements which only the man himself can red ink, with One' at the top, 'Penny' at the appreciate. How to turn over the leaves so bottom, Illustrated London News,' at the left quickly as to stamp 700 or 800 in an hour, hand, and Newspaper,' at the right. As to and yet not allow the corners to be crumpled the question, What constitutes a newspa- back, is a feat left to the delicate movements per? the public have had pretty nearly of his left hand. But ingenious as the process enough of that in quarrels, and lawsuits, and may be, it is certainly too rude for our goparliamentary discussion; but in regard to our ahead age; and Mr. Edwin Hill has invented present subject, it is well to bear this fact in a beautiful machine for effecting it by steam mind, that every newspaper must be stamped, power. Little inking-rollers feed themselves and that other periodicals like the Athenæum, with red ink, from a little reservoir; they deor Notes and Queries-may be stamped. The posit a little ink upon a little tablet; the die Athenæum, for instance, sells largely in the carries off a little of this ink; and by a very country; and it saves trouble to all parties, if remarkable swinging motion, it hurls over and the Post-office authorities will convey the re- dashes upon the paper. All the movements spective numbers to the homes of the respec- are rigorously timed, so as to occur in their tive purchasers in the country; this they will proper order; and by a slight movement of do, if a penny-stamp has been impressed upon the foot, an attendant can stop the machine each number. Hence the stamping of period- instantly. Mr. Hill assures us, that it cost him icals is chiefly compulsory, but in part volun- days and weeks of anxious thought to devise tary newspapers are stamped, whether to go a means for effecting the very simple process by post or not; other periodicals are stamped of turning over the successive leaves as they if, and only if, they are to go by post. are stamped: he effects this completely byIn the news stamping-rooms, we have to what shall we call it ?-say a little wind-mill, steer our course between reams and bales of the sails of which strike down the corner of paper. From the Morning Post we have to each sheet after being stamped, something dodge round the Economist; then the British analogous in action to the sails, or paddles, or Banner lies in the way of the Standard of vanes of the American reaping machine. Freedom; the Witness is standing on its edge, One newspaper, the great leviathan of the and the Guardian is lying flat down; the News press, is in this, as in many other particulars, of the World is nearly hidden behind the Wes- in advance of its brethren; the Times stamps leyan Times; and in trying to avoid the itself, instead of going to Somerset House to Patriot, we stumble upon the Watchman.-be stamped. When the daily impression of Not that these are actual bales of newspapers, this extraordinary journal became twenty, which we see, but there are red marks to in- thirty, forty, and even fifty thousand, the daily dicate the ownership of each. Newspapers carrying to and fro of so many tons of paper are stamped before, not after being printed-became an onerous work. A cure has been

found a very rational cure, avaliable in other with the kind of engine-turned ornamentation directions when circumstances render it desi- by a peculiar engraving-machine. The die, rable. The proprietors of the Times have thus engraved, is hardened by a careful applibeen furnished by the Stamp Office with a die, cation of heat. A small circular steel roller which is fixed to the form of type on the great is then softened, and is rolled with intense printing-cylinder. This die prints its impress force over the steel die, receiving in relief the at the same time, and in the same manner, as device which the die contained in intaglio. the rest of the printing is effected. A correct This roller, being in its turn hardened, is rollbalance of accounts between the proprietors ed forcibly over a steel plate, on which it and the Stamp Office is effected by the aid of leaves an impress in intaglio; and this is done a tell-tale or register, a species of clock-work 240 times on one plate, to give the 240 stamps which shews how often the cylinder has rota- which form a pound's worth of penny Queen's ted, and how many pennies are payable for heads. One original die will impress many the number of sheets stamped. All other rollers, and one roller will impress many plates, newspapers are thus stamped before the print- so that the original engraving becomes almost ing; the Times, during the printing. imperishable; and it is to this that the exact Among the busy workers in the busy rooms similarity of all the Queen's-heads is due. are those devoted to the Postage-stamp De- The printing of the stamps does not differ espartment. This is, perhaps, the most remark-sentially from ordinary copper-plate printing, able of all the varieties of stamping, on ac- except in the use of colored instead of black count of the enormous numbers with which we inks. After this, the backs of the sheets are have to deal. The postage-stamps may be re-gummed with a composition, in which potatogarded as of four kinds-penny adhesive stamps, starch is said to be a component. adhesive stamps of higher value, stamped en- But we have now to speak of a Somerset velopes, and stamped covers not in the form House process, which has cost a wonderful of envelopes. The last three varieties, how- amount of trouble, ingenuity, and expenseever, are relatively small in quantity: the we mean the perforating. Every one knows 'penny adhesive' being in an over-whelming that the separation of the earlier stamps one degree the most important. The envelopes from another was a tiresome affair, and every and the covers are stamped each with the in- one is grateful to the inventor, whoever he press from a single die-not worked by hand, was, of the method of making the little rows like the primitive newspaper-stamping, but by of holes which now render the separation so a stamping or embossing press worked by easy. Oh those little rows of holes, what a sea steam. The die feeds itself with ink, and of troubles they have occasioned! In 1847, stamps the impress, by one movement of the Mr. Archer invented a machine for this purarm, of the press; and it is curious to see how pose, and offered it to the government; and the men, by spreading out a number of envel-for several years there was a kind of paperopes like a fan in the left hand, can subject war going on between Mr. Archer, the Treathem successively, and with amazing rapidity to the action of the press.

sury, the Post-Office, and the Stamp Office. Each wrote to all of the others; cach made The adhesives' have occupied a vast amount proposals, which some of the others objected of ingenuity in bringing them to perfection. to; and-like four forces acting in different The engraving of the plates, the printing of directions-the resultant was not satisfactory the sheets, the gumming with adhesive com- to anybody. To see how Mr. Archer was reposition, and the perforating, have all called ferred from the Treasury to the Post-Office, forth many experiments, much mechanical in- from the Post-Office to the Stamp Office, and genuity, and a large expenditure of capital. from the Stamp Office to the Treasury, over And here we may usefully refer to an article and over again, would be a marvel to those published in the Journal about eight years who do not know how wofully slow the manago, concerning postage envelopes, a perusal agement of such things is in the hands of of which will render unnecessary anything government departments. The result, we bemore than a slight notice of the postage-stamps lieve, has been this-that Mr. Archer has reand envelopes here. Be it recollected, then, ceived a sum of money for his invention, and that the ordinary penny postage-stamps are that Mr. Edwin Hill has introduced the last not printed at Somerset House. The govern- finishing touches to the machine, which renment have a contract with a house in the City ders it so delicate and beautiful a piece of for printing the sheets at so much per thou- mechanism. We do not at all pretend to be sand. The engraving is conducted in a very peculiar manner. A small piece of steel is softened, and while in a soft state, it is engraved with the Queen's-head' by hand, and

Second Series, vol. vi. p. 57.

able to divide the praise fairly among those claiming it: all we know is, that the perforating-machine now employed works admirably.

There is one little matter which few would dream of. All paper is wetted previous to steel-plate printing; among the rest, the sheets

The

for postage-stamps. Now, this wetting is not a year ago, the receipt for money received was and never has been equal in different sheets, written on a stamp, which varied in value acor in different parts of the same sheet. cording to the amount of money to which the Whether it ever will be equal, let future ex- receipt related. There were threepenny, sixperimenters determine. Now, as all damp paper penny, shilling, eighteenpenny, and so on, up stretches, unequal damping produces unequal to ten-shilling stamps. It is not quite so well stretching; and when the sheets have dried known, perhaps, that this tax was very extenafter the printing, the 240 Queen's-heads may sively evaded by persons who found many be all awry. If these were pierced with crooked ways to do a crooked thing. The straight lines of holes, and these lines parallel very fact that the average of all the receiptand equidistant, some of them might run into stamps issued was found to be only fourpence the engraved device, and might cut off the each, shows that the higher stamps must have wordPostage' at the top, or the two words been ill attended to. The marked success of One Penny' at the bottom. Even to this the uniform penny-post system, led to the sugday the difficulty presents itself; and the way gestion of a uniform penny-receipt system. it is surmounted is this a boy stationed at a We forget who made the suggestion; but the table receives the sheets as they come from the government gave in its adhesion to the plan, printers, and measures each sheet rapidly by and an act was passed relating thereto in 1853. a gauge, separating the respective sheets into The act came into operation on the 10th of four groups. The sheets of each group differ October in that year. By its provisions, the from those in the next by perhaps a twentieth old and costly rates were repealed, and a new of an inch in width. The parallel lines of and uniform rate of one penny imposed as a perforations are then adjusted to these widths stamp-duty on receipts, and on drafts or orby a slight change in some of the working de- ders for the payment of money. The stamp tails of the machine. The perforating-machine may be either impressed on the paper, or athas a number of pins arranged in a row, and fixed by an adhesive composition, at the option fixed downwards to a steel block. The sheets of the parties; but where an adhesive stamp piled four together, are placed in the bed of is used, it must be cancelled by being written the machine; the pins descend and pierce over, so that it may never be used again. them; the pins rise again; the paper shifts old receipt-stamps in the hands of any person onward to the width of one Queen's-head; the at the time when the new act came into operapins descend again-and so the process con- tion were to be allowed for, or exchanged for tinues. It is useless to attempt to describe new at the full difference of value. There here the delicate mechanism by which all this were other changes made at the same time in is effected; even to pull the pins out of the the stamps for legal documents, the amount of perforations which they have made, has called duty in most cases being much reduced. forth no small amount of ingenuity. Near No one has been more surprized than the one of the machines is a box containing that stamp commissioners themselves at the wonder which would puzzle many an inquirer: some ful success of this change. Only one short would say it is seed, some sand, some dust. year has passed, and yet the penny receiptIt is the assemblage of little circular bits which stamps have brought in more than twice as have been cut or punched out of the perfora- much revenue as the higher-priced stamps of tions, and each is a perfect little circle, smooth former years. The penny-post stamps were on one side and gummed on the other. What long in rising into importance: they brought a pity it is that such prettinesses are of no in L.310,000 in 1840, and gradually rose to use! L.1,760,000 in 1853. But the penny receiptOne word more about postage-stamps. We stamps jumped into favor at once. Nearly have observed that some writers on this sub- 6000 persons in the metropolis alone applied ject have talked of billions of adhesive stamps. for the substitution of new stamps for old at Now billion is an equivocal term: "according the time of the change; and we have been into Cocker,' it means one thing; according to other authorities, it means another; but if it mean a million of millions, then there have not been billions of adhesive stamps issued. The number, nevertheless, is surprisingly large; in 1853, it reached about 380,000,000 much more than 1,000,000 a day.

The new penny receipt-stamps -a recent development of the penny-system-have a history of their own, and that history is peculiarly connected with the Stamp Office at Somerset House.

It is of course well known that, until about

formed that 2,000,000 adhesive stamps, and 2,500,000 of non-adhesive, were required for this substitution. Some of the large firms apply for L.50, L.100, L.200 worth of penny receipt-stamps at a time. Taken in the aggregate, there are rather more adhesive stamps than stamped papers used by the public for receipts; but the two classes approach pretty nearly to an equality. From October 1853 to October 1854, the issue of penny adhesive receipt-stamps exceeded 50,000,000; and the two kinds together did not fall far short of 100,000,000-a wonderful proof of the vast num

ber of separate money-payments involved in and so has ours. Our moral relates to the one year's trade of our busy country. These odd forgetfulness of the many-headed public new features do not relate simply to penny respecting stamps. There are moneys and receipt-stamps; commercial bills and promis- documents in the hands of the Stamp-office sory-notes have recently come under the oper- authorities, left there through the sheer negli ation of a law whereby the stamp-duty is les-gence of those to whom they belong. A wor sened; but the lessening of the duty is accom- thy man, but no lawyer, being told that a panied with an increase of strictness, and the stamp-duty is payable on a certain document, stamping achievements of Somerset House will become more and more busy.

straightway goes to Somerset House, pays the money, receives a kind of warrant or acknowlWith respect to the manufacture of the edgment, but does not have the document penny receipt-stamps, there is a peculiarity stamped after all; he either does not know or which is not at present permitted to meet the does not think about it, until, perhaps, some public eye. An eminent firm prepares them time afterwards he is astonished at finding his by a process of surface-printing, involving document wanting in validity. But worse many new and remarkable characteristics, of than this, scores of documents have been which we know little, and can say less. The left at the Stamp Office by solicitors, paid upprinted sheets reach Somerset House, where on, and stamped in proper form, and never Mr. Hill's invincible perforators stab them called for! Bonds for sums of money, deeds, right and left, and then they are ready for sale legal and equity instruments of various kinds, like a batch of hot-cross buns, united, yet have been thus lying for years unclaimed. easily separable. Every Queen's-head on an The Registrar of one of the departments has adhesive postage stamp has a square border of given himself a great deal of trouble, out of seventy little perforations; and those on a re- the daily routine of business, to endeavor to ceipt-stamp are equally close together. Many discover homes for these foundlings: in most wholesale stationers provide books of blank cases he has succeeded; and in some instanreceipt-stamps, partially engraved or not; ces, the owners were truly astonished to find these books are sent to Somerset House to be that such documents were in existence. stamped, and are then salable to the public in a very convenient form, and at a small advance on the actual price of the stamps themselves.

Every story has, or ought to have, a moral;

This

is an example, analogous on a small scale, to the astounding negligence often displayed by the public in respect to post-letters, with and without money in them.

From The Morning Chronicle.
LIFE AT BALAKLAVA.

most favorable to that contemplative state of mind which, in its still small way, gloats over the fatigues and privations of a campaign, exults in the clash of arms, and indulges in a comfortIT is fully understood out here that the atten-able grumble at the slowness of military operation of our friends at home is directed to the is- tions.

BALAKLAVA, Nov. 2.

sue of the combat rather than to its individual Newspapers, letters from friends at home, and features. The main chance is an object of inter- the occasional arrival of some freshly caught est rather than the means by, and the circum- officials or amateurs, have made us familiar with stances under, which it is brought about. Still this state of public opinion at home. The volthere are subjects, incidents, and features which untary correspondents of weekly papers, who claim and merit some attention; and I believe date their letters from Great Coram Street, Rusthat life at Balaklava, in October and November, sell Square, or Ball's Pond, Islington, are fiery 1854, is interesting and curious enough to occupy and impatient enough; and there is a fund of even for an odd half hour or so the thoughts of amusement to be gathered from home letters, full the washed, brushed, and starched of those that of anxious and somewhat petulant inquiries as sit in ease and comfort at home, rolled up in to the exact time when the army out here thinks chairs with cushioned backs, their well-blacked of capturing the Czar, and the ideas generally boots resting on burnished steel fenders, the news-prevalent at head-quarters as to the mode, manpapers within easy reach, and the tea-urn sim-ner, and place of his detention. But most mering behind them. And dimly looming in the amusing are the fresh arrivals, who stamp the distant future are visions of soft mattresses, clean dust of the Crimea with the air of conquerors, sheets, and a curtained bed, with hot shaving sneer at the proximity of the Russians, who long water, a cold bath, clean linen, and one of those divine repasts known to mortals by the name of "a good English breakfast in the morning." Those hours-the easy hours of tea, music, conversation, and dozing after dinner, and that position, the being rolled up in an easy-chair- are

ere this ought to have been swept off the face of the land; and most indignantly do they address themselves to every one desiring to be informed why Sebastopol still holds out. It is curious to trace these freshmen through the phases of their acclimatization to the campaign. I had the good

fortune of meeting two of them the other day, their long rest, whither no bugle-call reaches, and just as, covered with dust and perspiration after no alarm gun sends its booming sounds. Poor a long day's hard ride. I was galloping over the fellows, these two! their process of initiation road from Kadikoi to Balaklava. They stopped has begun; it is not over yet, and God only me, but if they had not done so I should cer- knows its end. The coming in of new men, and tainly have stopped them. They were worth the going out of those that are "seedy and dead looking at; it made me feel at home, and I had beat," forms an important feature of life in Baa great mind to ask them for the whereabouts of laklava. an omnibus, or the starting of the last Woolwich I gave you a description of the place in fortrain. They looked for all the world as if some- mer letters. With its rocky entrance, its narrow, body had packed them carefully in a box, with deep, natural dock of a harbor, which seems plenty of wadding and tissue paper, and sent hardly large enough to float one of our gunthem down to St. Katherine's wharf, with direc- boats, and yet has room and depth enough for tions of This side up," and "Fragile-not to some of our largest linc-of-battle ships, with its be roughly handled;" and as if, the directions quaint village town, and steep, ruin crowned having been scrupulously complied with, some hills, Balaklava is certainly one of the most cuequally careful person had unshipped and un-rious and interesting spots that it ever was my packed them at Balaklava, and placed them good fortune to see. Why the Russians did not steadily on their feet on a very clean spot on the fortify it, and why we were allowed to enter by beach. There they were with their dark blue sea and land, while they opposed our advance uniforms and velvet facings, without a suspicion with merely a handful of men and a few paltry of a speck of dust, the gold embroidery on their used-up cannon, is still a mystery; and, since excaps untarnished, and shining with a brightness perience has proved that this weak resistance which perforce made one think of the military does not hide a deep-laid scheme, there is no detailors' shops in Charing-cross and Pall-mall; nying that it discloses a deep-laid blunder. What and their buttons were small suns, and their the place was before we came it is easy to guess, boots were as shiny and their shirt-collars as white for the harbor and the houses tell their own story. as patent blacking, patent soap, and Glenfield's The inhabitants of Balaklava were fishermen, patent starch could make them. The metal and used to supply the mess-tables of the officers sheaths of their swords glistened in the sun; and officials in Sebastopol. Not a house with their hilts had a look of having never known the out its enormous extent of nets, carefully stowed hand of man, and the port d'épees of their maiden away under a shed in the yard. They were most Bwords were so crisp and prim it made me sigh of them Greeks, with a slight sprinkling of Tarto think such pretty things were ever destined for tar Turks; thus much is shown by the books use. The men had fancy whips, too, slight, found in the houses. They were ruled over, and whalebone affairs, whose ephemeral existence kept in proper order and trim by at least twenty half an hour's ride on a Cossack horse would Russian officials, large and small, who, besides most assuredly terminate. And their bright sil- the usual perquisites in the shape of small bribes, ver spurs had actually round rowels-good-na-eked out their scanty salaries, and contrived to tured, inoffensive rowels, that reminded one of keep up appearances by fishing in the sea quite park nags and a decent canter across Dulwich as zealously as those over whom they ruled, and Common. And the men's faces were round and sending the produce of their expeditions for sale jolly, red and white, and their chins as smooth as to Sebastopol. They, however, are all well built, a real young lady's on her first coming out. at least such was the impression they made upon While humbly replying to their stern questions, our minds, fresh as we were from Bulgaria. The I looked at these men with undisguised astonish-rooms are well boarded and whitewashed, and ment, while they, with a well-bred indifference, which it did my heart good to see, scanned and marked down my tarnished gold lace, rusty sword, and unblacked boots, and slightly smiled at the haversack which dangled at my side, and All these were luxuries to us after our peace the rough Cossack pony which shook its long campaign of Alladdyn, and great was the rejoicmane in their smooth faces. That was some ing at headquarters, and unbounded our esteem days ago. I have seen the men since with half for the Russians, whom, seated on their chairs, their shine taken out of 'them by a couple of and our meals placed on their tables, we pronights under canvas and a few meals on (not at)nounced to be a more civilized, a more enlightour camp mess-table, the ground. Their blue and velvet bore traces of dust, their metal sheaths had suspicious spots about them, and their chins were darkened with a beard of two days' growth. They rode rough Cossack ponies, and groaned under the weight of heavy haversacks, and, what is worse, their faces, somewhat pale and jaundiced, gave indications of that terrible seediness which affects new-comers, and which, if neglected, sends them either home on sick leave, or to some shunned spot outside the camp, where the turf broken and the brown earth heaped in little hillocks, where the weary of the army take

the houses of the Czar's officers contained furniture, in the shape of large bedsteads, feather beds, valuable tables, chairs, and even writing tables, with curious china inkstands.

ened, a more respectable nation than our poor, dirty, furnitureless allies, the Turks.

From the first, we saw little of the inhabitants of Balaklava; so we could not give vent to our feelings of gratitude and esteem. When we burst into the little place, the staff and cavalry down the road from Chernaya, the light division off the hills, and the ships of war through the narrow entrance into the harbor; and when those Tauridian rocks, which at one time may have listened to the sad monologues of Iphigenia, reechoed the thunders of British guns-and what an awful row those guns did make in that narrow