St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-01-10
trusive and was soberly dressed She
has a husband and two sons.
The Uses of Government.
Governments exist for the purpose

Governments exist for the purpose of
preserving postage stamps. Instead of
denying this frequent proposition, the
time has come to avow the doctrine
openly. We know from DR.. Draper
that the standard of truth is human be-
lief. What the most people believe to
be is true. This has its exceptions.
There was GalileO and there have been
other dissenters, but it holds, by his
philosophy, as general test.
Subjected to that test, government is
an organization of society designed to
re-purchase cancelled postage stamps in
one million stamp lots for $500. This
is so generally believed that it is foolish
to try to eradicate the notion. There
are people here in Hartford to-day, en-
gagged IN saving up old stamps to aid a
deserving person who, in behalf of a
deserving charity, is gathering a mill
ion postage stamps because the Gov
eminent will pay $500 for them. AL
ready the collector has secured about
thlrty thousand stamps in six months.
ion in about sixteaR eettrtt get the e. round mill
ably she can waste more time at this
particular effort of charity than at any
other that has yet been invented. 1t
has its uses.
A correspondent of the New York
Evening Post, of last Friday, has also a
person in mind, who is gathering a mill
ion stamps for the sake of the three
hundred dollars. People who know the
Government pays that price are SO
| plenty, so honest and so charitable that
they cannot be gainsaid. What is the
use of disappointing them at the start
OF sixteen years. undertaking? 1t
will undertake itself soon enough. No
body who has got the three hundred
dollars has ever been discovered, and
that is one of the destinations of the
pursuit. A million postage stamps are
| like the north pole or the Lualaba, and
these people who set out after then
gradually disappear. That is one e1
the attractions. There is a constant
procession of American citizens, chiefly
females, headed all the time for the
United States Treasury, who know theil
claims will be good when they get the
million stamps, yet who move along
and go out of sight instead of going tC
Washington. DR.. Mary Walker, who
fought her way into the Treasury every
day for a year without making bel
claim known to the public, may, in fact
have been the sole successful one tC
reach the capital. But she never, ex,
cept by the most general implication
indicated that she was postage hunter
She did one day stamp on a watchmar
at the door who refused her admittance
So, we repeat, the collection of mill,
ion stamp groups is going on all over
the country. Ridicule, denial, argu-
ment, do no good The belief in that
three hundred dollars reward is perma-
nent. Let it be Il fact. Take the case
we first quoted. Friends as they gath
er fifty stamp lots, are sending them by
mail to the collector. 1t will take 30
600 such letters to make up her list fol
her, and those 10000 letters will bring
the government 5000. Perhaps it can
afford to pay $500 for 5000 And let it
not be forgotten by collectors that there
is pot of gold at the base of every
rainh"w Thi- is an older and truer
proposition than the other, and does
not depend on the stability of govern
ments for its fultillment. Governments.
however, are paying about $3.50 a
pound for all the gold brought to them
from these sources.-Hdrtford Courant.