Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-04-12

to 1t that that this reserve is not depleted.
The same manifold precautions surround
the manufacture of postage stamps that
characterize the printing of currency.
times during the process of manufacture,
and if a single sheet be missing when the
hour arrives for ceasing work, every en-
plOye of the division where 1t has disap-
peared is compelled to remain in the build
ing until the misplaced bit of paper is
found. AT night the plates from which the
stamps are printed are carefully checked
off and locked up IN great vaults fitted with
time locks, the doors of which can not be
opened the next morning unless all three of
the men in charge be present, it being nee
essary for each to manipulate a lock of
which he alone knows the combination.
Strange it might appear, Uncle Sam,
in the case of stamp manufacture, has in
stalled an official whose duty it is to see to
it that one department of the government
performs properly the work intrusted to it
by another branch of the government This
official is known as the stamp agent, and
the United States stamp agency Is prob
ably, in so far the public is concerned,
the least known of all the great bureaus of
the national government,
With his assistants he exercises constant
supervision to insure the proper perform
ance Of the Treasury Department Of the
big job printing intrusted to it by the Post
Office Department. He sees to it that the
paper used Is of the proper quality, that
the mucilage has not been spread on too
and that the dress of each new consign-
ment of stamps is of exactly the same tint
as those which have gone before. Finally,
an army of clerks in this institution attend
to dispatching consignments of stamps to
the American post offices not only in every
nook and corner of the United States, but
also in Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico, Guam
and the Philippines.
When an old issue of postage stamps is
retired and a new series comes to take it's
place there is a great confiagration in
specially prepared furnace in the basement
of the general post office at Washington,
for here all the leftover stamps are Gre
mated. Many preliminaries are gone
through with before the burning take
place. The chief task is, of course, the ac-
counting. Uncle Sam maintains a book
keeping account with every postmaster in
his service, and when an issue of stamps is
called in for retirement every bit of paper
received at the postal headquarters must
be counted and credited to the postmaster
who returned it. Occasionally the govern
ment finds itself with a heavy stock of Su-
perannuated stamps on hand and no chance
to get rid of them at a 'rnark-doWn' sale.
Thus, after the close of the Pan-American
exposition the condemned" stamps which
had been issued in commemoration of that
show, but remained unsold and were fed to
the flames, had a face value of over a mil
lion dollars. and had actually cost the gov
eminent fully $4,000.
Situated not many miles from Washing
ton and closely guarded IS the manufa Glory
of another kind of government Stamps-the
steel post-marking stamps which are util-
lied in post offices and railway trains
all over the land to cancel the colored bits
of paper which adorn missives of all
kinds. For two-thrds of a century the con-
tract for making these ingenious steel
markers has been held by the Chambers
father and son. Originally their plant was