Canada: Its Postage Stamps and Postal Stationery

by Clifton A. Howes

40. Letters, or other articles, which from any cause remain undelivered in any Post Office, or which having been posted, cannot be forwarded by post, shall under such regulations as the Postmaster General may make, be transmitted by Postmasters to the Post Office Department as Dead Letters, there to be opened and returned to the writers on payment of any postage due thereon, with five cents additional on each Dead Letter to defray the costs of returning the same, or such Dead Letters may in any case or class of cases be otherwise disposed of as the Postmaster General may direct.

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77. [Stealing mail matter or forging stamps, etc., (see 13^o—14^o Vict. Cap. XVII. Sec. 16) is a felony. Stealing or damaging printed matter, package of merchandise, etc., or enclosing a letter in other mail matter, or obstructing mails is a misdemeanor.]

Sub. sec. 16. To remove with fraudulent intent from any letter, newspaper or other mailable matter, sent by Post, any postage stamp which shall have been affixed thereon, or wilfully, with intent aforesaid remove from any postage stamp which shall have been previously used, any mark which shall have been made thereon at any Post Office, shall be a misdemeanor.

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81. If any person uses or attempts to use in prepayment of postage on any letter or other mailable matter posted in this Province, any postage stamp which has been before used for a like purpose, such person shall be subject to a penalty of not less than Ten and not exceeding Forty dollars for every such offense, and the letter or other mailable matter on which such stamp has been so improperly used may be detained, or in the discretion of the Postmaster General forwarded to its destination charged with double postage.

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91. This Act shall come into operation on the first day of April, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight.

Although the above Act gives most of the groundwork upon which the Post Office Department of Canada has since been operated, save of course the

changes in detail that will be noted in their proper places, yet it seems advisable, in spite of some possible repetition, to quote the larger part of the Instructions sent out to Postmasters in preparation for the impending changes, because of additional details to be found therein.