The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1915-02-18
WHERE BELGIAN
CAPITAL NOW IS
Crowded Into Little Corner Where
the Affairs Of State Are
Carried on.
[By William G. Shepherd, United

FBy William G. Shepherd, United
Press Staff Correspondent
HAVRE, France, Feb. 2. (By mail to
New York. )-Squeezed into little
suburb, known as Nice-Havrais, is the
Belgian government. In the house
once occupied by q rich German ship
per, the Belgian war department car
ries on its busy affairs. In another
mansion, deserted by German, the
foreign Office holds sway and on the
second floor of long line OF store
buildings most of the other depart
ments have their temporary Offices.
France has turned over this little
spot to Belgium Nice-Havrais is not
French soil but Belgian and it will re-
main so by the promise of France un-
til the king of Belgium rides again
into Brussels.
1t is the Belgian postofice that is the
most interesting spot in this little
Belgium The French postmaster
moved out, bag and baggage, when
the Belgians came, and the Belgian de-
ipartment of posts and telegraphs took
1T over. The telegraph business
amounts to little, but In the matter
of posts this little Office probably holds
all worlds records, for it's size. 1t is
"a paradise for postage stamp collec-
tors. They bseige the place, from the
opening to the closing hour. They
come from all parts of the countries
of the allies. Some of them live at a
nearby hotel and day after day they
repair to the little postoffice and buy
stamps Of all denominations which
they aff1x to postal cards and thrust in
to the letter slots.
Ii strikes an onlooker-especfally
one who is not victim of the postage
stamp craze-as a gruesome business,
this matter making the Belgian i'll
wind blow we'll for themselves, but
this as thought that appears to have
struck neither the postage stamp col
lectors themselves nor the pretty Bel
gian girl and the good looking young
Belgian fellow, with the brown mus
tache, who preside at the stamp win
dow They have patches of stamps,
including one Of every denomination
ready for any person who comes up
ana says, Give me all OF them"
Madame Romano, who keeps the
cafe at the corner nearby, is making
a small fortune in picture postal cards.
1t is to her that the stamp collectors
20 for cards to stick their stamps on.
The collectors say that stamps which
are placed on letters are never 80
clearly and thoroughly cancelled as
are those which are fixed to the hard
surface of cards, and the cancellinS
marks make all the difference In the
value of a postage stamp, from the
collectors viewpoint.
Three men work at cancelling, In
the Belgian postoffice at Havre, and
they seem to have caught the spirit
of the stamp collectors for they work
and seem to be careful,
In spite of the mass OF work they have,
to be careful to put the cancellins
mark right over the center OF the
stamp.
twenty-five years from now ex-
planned an English stamp collector,
these Belgian stamps, with the Havre
postmark. will be worth a great deal.
It's one of the few stamps that Will
tell the history of the great war.
There's only one stamp that the war
has made as valuable as this Havre
stamp and that Is the Belgian, with
German cancellation on 1t. For while
after they entered Belgium the Ger
mans permitted the use OF Belgian
stamps. but now, ! understand, only
German stamps are used In that ter
ritory."
John Ball Osborne, the American