Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-06-21
this enormous number 1,4I2, 100000 and odd


were 2-cent stamps.
The stamps are printed from engraved steel
plates big enough to strike off 400 of them on a
sheet with a single stroke of the press. After
being struck off in this way. the sheet passes
beneath revolving brush carrying mucilage,
by which the back Of the sheet isgummed. The
sheet is then dried and fattened under an n.y.
draulic press. Next it is run through perfor-
ating machine. which Is an arrangement Of
little wheels revolving parallel to each other.
and just far enough apart to make the perfora-
tons as one sees them in q sheet of finished
stamps fresh bought at the post office. After
the perforations have been made across the
sheet one way by one machine, the sheet must
pass through a second perforated machine for
the cross-perforations, the stamps being thus
outlined SO as to be readily torn apart. In the
middle of each machine, however, is a knife
which cuts the sheet in two SO that the sheet Of
400 comes out Of machine No. / in two
sheets of 200 each, and these are divided into
four sheets of 100 each by the knife in machine
No. 2. All stamps come in sheets of 100 for SALE
The stamps are now done. and only remain to
be gone over, inspected, counted and tagged
In packages Of 100 sheets before being sent out
As they are printed the sheets of stamps are
carefully counted and if one is ever so slightly
defective, though but one stamp is injured or
imperfect, the sheet is destroyed and carefully
accounted for. 1t is an old story, by the way,
that when the English government wished to
discover way to tear stamps apart readily it
ohered So0UOO for an acceptable suggestion. A
poverty-stricken but ingenious Britisher prof.
fered the notion of perforating the stamp
sheets and received the fortune
HOW STAMPS ARD DISTRIBUTED.
When postmaster wants stamps he makes
out blank reauisition upon the Post Office
Department here. But the department does
not send back the stamps in return. It simply
communicates with the government stamp
agent in New York city, who has charge of the
business of distributing all Uncle Sans stamps
The stamp agent draws every day upon the
American Bank Note Company for az many
stamps as he requires to fill the orders trans
mltted to him from Washington. He receives
the stamps-so many million 2-cent 80 many
million l-cent and SO on-from the bank note
company in bulk, and it is his business to see
that they are done up in packages according to
orders and mailed to the postmasters requiring
them. Postal cards are distributed in like
manner by an agent at Birmingham, Conn.,,
where they are manufactured by the firm
which has the contract Another agent at
Hartford distributes the stamped envelopes,
which are made in that city. Uncle Sans
stamps are just about the ugiiest in the world
because cheapness is made a great object in
their production. Somewhat over twenty
years ago the United States had by far the
most beautiful stamps in existence. This de-
cadence must be regarded as melancholy
symptom by those who consider that postage
stamps as well as coins should be expressive OF
nations artistic development