Morning journal and courier., 1882-09-07
Washed Postage Stamps.
Devices for Preventing Their Us,

From the Scientific American.
 The assumption that the concerted wash ing of stamps on large scale would be necessary to cause the government to lose ma- terially by re used stamps will hardly hold. There are nearly 45,0O0 postoffices in the country, and if the department were to carry from each office single fraudulently stamp ed letter day, the government would be cheated to the extent of nearly half million dollars year. It may not be possible to dispose of $S, ,OO0, 900 worth of washed stamps in bulk yet out of 10000, 900 letter writers it would not be possible to find enough who are willing to use again cleaned or imperfect ly cancelled stamps, and having opportunities or enough to do it to cheat the revenue out of all that the deficiency is found to be.
 That the cancellation of stamps is very freqently imperfect is known to all who han de many letters. In many instances the stamp is not defaced at all :; in more the mark is so slight that it may be easily rubbed off. MT. Pearson admits that no cancelling ink is ineffaceable, and expresses the opinio on that postage stamps ought to be printed in fugitive colors, which would be removed by any attempt to wash off the cancelling mark
 The conditions under which stamps must often be handled, however, by children and other unskillful persons, both before and after they are put upon matter to be mailed, for bids the use of other than fairly permanent ink in printing them. They are held in sweaty hands, carried in pockets, where they are subjected to dampening by rain, perspira- ton, and the like, and always liable to over wetting when the gum is moistened to affix them. Hencs the necessity of good paper and waterproof ink.
 If stamps are used, security against their re use must be sought rather in some means of cancelling them indeiibly or destructively. Thus far no ink has yet been discovered that could not be discharged or washed off by suitable means. For destructive cancellation many devices have been tried to cut, dorado, rupture, or burn the paper of the stamp. None of these, however, have proved entire ly satisfactory, their tendency being to muti- late or set on fire the letter or parcel the stamp is applied to. A more promising plan contemplates the use of a stamp of two parts, one to be gummed to the letter or package, the other to be left free, to be torn off by the postmaster and destroyed, making it impossible to use the same stamp again.
 This plan seems well calculated to prevent the re use of stamps except by parties inside the postoffices, where there is reason to sus- pect large part of this fraud upon the rev. enue is perpetrated. In multitudes of offices the new mail matter often lies for hours be- fore being made ready for transmission. In such cases there is little or nothing to pre- vent dishonest clerk from removing the uncancelled stamp and substituting those that have already been cancelled. The indi- VluuhI may us SmdLlsyot, II iTS4uontly repeated in large number of places, the ag- gregate loss to the department may amount up to millions.
 The most obvious way of stopping frauds of this nature would seem to be the use of stamped envelopes and wrappers; and in view of the probable saving to the revenue by preventing re use, the government might find it profitable to encourage the more gen. eral employment of stamped envelopes, by allowing to purchasers of them aconsiderable discount from the price of the stamps. It might be prac icable also to print the stamps across the face of the envelopes in such a way that in the writing of the address the stamp would necessarily be cancelled. The usual postmarks would suffice to show whether any wrapper had done it's appointed service
 The ingenious reader will readily see how inviting field is here presented for success ful invention. The large amount .of revenue involved, and the urgent demand the world over for a practical preventive of the frauds pointed out, make it certain that whoever will solve the problem will not fail of a large reward.