AMOUNTS COLLECTED BY SUBDIVISIONS.

Albany County Subdivision$ 4,500.00
Broome County204.27
Chautauqua301.36
Dutchess County616.55
Glen Cove165.25
New York County255,701.04
Rensselaer Co.2,952.19
Schenectady Co.1,794.62
Ulster County963.97
Brooklyn9,278.70
Buffalo1,947.74
Columbia County311.00
Far Rockaway10.00
Islip Township140.00
Oneida County1,323.30
Rochester8,434.49
Syracuse1,482.32
Westchester County257.68

ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTMAS STAMP

Reproduction From an Original Envelope Bearing One of the Stamps Referred to in This Article.

“What was the origin of the Christmas Stamp?” was a question asked of Red Cross officials scores—doubtless hundreds—of times during the holiday season. This much we knew: On a letter received two years ago from Denmark Mr. Jacob Riis discovered a new and unknown stamp which aroused his curiosity. Inquiries brought its story, which he told a few months later in “The Outlook.” Miss Emily P. Bissell, the able and energetic secretary of the Delaware Red Cross Branch, read the story, and to the Annual Meeting of the Red Cross in 1907 brought a design for our first Christmas Stamp for the benefit of the anti-tuberculosis work, asking permission that the Delaware Branch might experiment with it, and so it had its birth in America. So successful proved the little stamp this past year, it became a national stamp. The story of its sale and success is told elsewhere. But what about its origin? Was it first thought of in Denmark? No one seemed to know. Then came the Tuberculosis Congress, and with it a report on Swedish tuberculosis work. What a surprise it was to find in this interesting pamphlet the origin of the “Charity Stamp,” as it is called, and still more of a surprise—a welcome surprise—to discover that its invention is due to our own “Sanitary Commission”—that precursor of the Red Cross. The Swedish report says: “The honor of having invented the Charity Stamp must be given to America—that land of inventions.” In the year 1862 the first Charity Stamps were sold at a great charity festival in Boston. These stamps, which were called “Sanitary Fair Stamps,” were sold to benefit the wounded in the war then proceeding between the Northern and Southern States. The idea was not adopted in Europe until thirty years later, when in 1892 Portugal produced the first Charity Stamps (private stamps for the Red Cross Society). Since then almost every country in Europe has used them and several hundred different types have been called into existence. Some of those used in Sweden are reproduced in this article. Learning this much from the Swedish report, Red Cross Headquarters began an investigation of its own, and through the librarian of the Boston Public Library was put into communication with Mr. A. W. Batchelder, and through his courtesy received three of the original stamps and a copy of the “American Journal of Philately” January, 1889, which contains an interesting article on “Stamps of the United States Sanitary Fairs,” by J. W. Scott. This article, much of which we quote, is illustrated by a number of these Sanitary Fair Stamps. Thanks to the kindness of Mr. Joseph S. Rich, of New York, who loaned to the Red Cross his collection of these stamps, and to the Surgeon-General’s office, of the United States Army, which photographed them, we were able to reproduce illustrations of many of these stamps.

The following is taken from the American Journal of Philately, January, 1889:

“In conversing with non-philatelic friends we are frequently taunted with the assertion that stamp collecting teaches nothing, commemorates no important events, and, in fact, has none of those claims to recognition which are conceded to the older science of numismatics.