The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-02-21

kind of learning that is curious if lot
valuable. The rage for the study and
collection of postage stamps lasts only
two or three years with each individual.
The boys leave it off long before the
baseball age, and the girls before the
age OF dancing school. But there is a
never-ending succession of new students
and collectors, and, as there are new
varieties of stamps continually appear
ing, the size of the new albums has to
be increased and their manufacturers
do business of increasing profit. The
business of supplying the albums and
the stamps to the little ones costs low
ing parent sometimes as much in year
as their clothes or their schooling; some
OF the parents may truthfully and la
mentally say that it would have been
money in their pockets if Sir Rowland
Hill never had been born.
Within half dozen years another
business in connection with postage
stamps has grown up, causing at times
very aggravated amount of worri-
ment and labor Some one informs a
child or benevolent adult that the
sum of 800 will be given
for 100000 stamps that have
been already used on letters.
The use to which they are put is not
generally explained. Sometimes it is
said they are for the manufacture of
papier-mache. At other times it is
solemnly stated that they can be soldto
persons whose lives are devoted to the
endowment of hospital beds at one hun
dred dollars apiece. Again it is said
there is an extraordinary demand for
cancelled old stamps in a part of China
where they are used to paper walls of
houses, the style of decoration having
some mysterious effect in averting ca
lamity, and especially in saving the
lives of little children who would be
devoured by their hungry parents or
friends but for the saving charm of the
old stamps on the walls. There is
probably scarcely one of our readers
who has not assisted in the collection
of old stamps to make the million that
some friend has undertaken to gather;
but no one that we ever heard of has
been able to ascertain that it has
yielded 800 which have been applied
to areal or pretended benevolent object.
A strong presumption exists in reason
ing minds that there is a fraud in the
business. Every one knows that many
stamps go though the mails uncan-
celed, or with the canceling marks so
indistinct that they can easily be re-
moved. Probably at least ten per cent.
of the whole number used could be
made serviceable second time. In
1000. 900 old three-cent stamps, costing
800, 100000 could be used over again
and these would be worth So, 900 to the
parties buying the million stamps for
800. The profit from the business is
thus seen to be enormous.
The British Post-office Department
has for some years found that the
amount of stamps upon the letters it
carries exceeds the amount issued to
the public, and of course the excess
must consist of old stamps from which
the cancellation has been obliterated.
A new penny stamp has been devised,
printed with inks that are intended to
set at defiance the various devices by
which an old stamp is made to look as
good as new. Whether the plan will
succeed is unknown. But the fact that
more stamps are used on letters in
Great Britain than are issued by the de-
partment shows that fraud is extensive
ly practiced, and leads to the inference
that a considerable number of each
million of old stamps collected and
sold are used again on letters, instead
of helping to endow hospital beds and
save Chinese from cannibalism.-PhS
ddelphiG Bulletin.