In 1844, after the exposé of the letter-opening practices at the General Post-Office, Mr. Leech gave in Punch his "Anti-Graham Envelopes," and his satirical postage envelope, afterwards engraved by Mr. W. J. Linton, and widely circulated, represents Sir James Graham sitting as "Britannia." About the same time there might have been seen in the windows of booksellers of the less respectable class, a kind of padlock envelope, exhibiting the motto, "Not to be Grahamed."
For eight long years, the English people may be said to have enjoyed a complete monopoly in postage-stamps. Towards the close of 1848, they were introduced into France, and subsequently into every civilized nation in the world. Last year they even penetrated into the Ottoman Empire, and strange as it appears, when viewed in the light of Mohammedan usage, the Sultan has been prevailed upon to allow his portrait to appear on the new issues of Turkish stamps.
In pursuance of a recommendation of a select committee of the House of Commons which sat in 1852, a perforating machine was purchased from Mr. Henry Archer, the inventor, for the sum of four thousand pounds.[177] The same committee could not decide, they said, on the "conflicting evidence" whether copper-plate engraving or surface printing would best secure the stamps against forgery, but they considered that the accurate perforation of the sheets would be a valuable preventive against forgery, "inasmuch as it would be exceedingly difficult to counterfeit sheets, and sheets badly done would at once excite suspicion when offered for sale." The invention of the perforating machine is said to have been attended with considerable labour, as, undoubtedly, it was by skill and ingenuity. To the Post-Office and the public the patent was sufficiently cheap. For a number of years the stamps had to be separated from each other by knives or scissors; now one stamp may be torn from the other with ease and safety. The process of puncturing the narrow spaces round each stamp—an undertaking not so easy as it seems—is the last the sheet of stamps undergoes before it is ready for sale.
With regard to the other processes, little is known out of the Stamp-Office, beyond what may be gathered from a close inspection of the postage-stamps themselves. For obvious reasons, it has never been thought desirable to publish any account of the manufacture of stamps. We may simply say that all English postage-labels are manufactured at Somerset House, and the entire establishment, which is distinct from the other branches of the Inland Revenue Department, is managed at the annual expense of thirty thousand pounds.[178] Of this sum, nineteen thousand pounds is the estimated cost for the present year, 1863-1864, of paper for labels and envelopes, and for printing, gumming, and folding. About five thousands pounds will be necessary to pay the salaries of the various officers, including five hundred pounds to the supervisor, and one hundred pounds to the superintendent of the perforating process. Mr. Edwin Hill, a brother of Sir Rowland Hill, is at the head of the department. A large number of boys are employed at the machines, under the superintendence of three or four intelligent superintendents. The paper used for the stamps is of a peculiar make, each sheet having a water-mark of two hundred and forty crowns; the blocks used are of first-rate quality, and only subjected to a certain number of impressions. The blocks are inked with rollers as in letter-press printing. Of course, the stamps are printed in sheets, though each one is struck with the same die or punch. After the printing, and before the sheets are perforated, they are covered on the back with a gelatine matter to render the label adhesive.
Great precaution is taken in the printing of the stamps to provide against forgery. All the lines and marks, as well as the initial letters in the corner, are arranged so as to make the whole affair inimitable. The best preservative, however, in our opinion, against a spurious article, is the arrangement under which stamps are sold. Only obtainable in any large quantity from the Stamp or Post-Offices, any attempt on the part of the forger to put a base article into circulation is encumbered with difficulties. Stamps, while they do duty for coin, are used almost exclusively for small transactions, and generally among people well known to each other. Other precautions are nevertheless very necessary; and besides the initial letters on each stamp—different in every one of the two hundred and forty in the sheet—which are regarded as so many checks on the forger, this pest to society would have to engrave his own die, and cast his own blocks, and find a drilling-machine, perhaps the most difficult undertaking of all. The paper, besides, would be a considerable obstacle, and not less so the ink, for that used in this manufacture differs from ordinary printer's ink, not merely in colour, but in being soluble in water.
When postage-stamps were first introduced in England, it was little thought that they would become a medium of exchange, and far less that they would excite such a furore among stamp collectors. The same stamp may do duty in a number of various ways before it serves its normal purpose. It may have proceeded through the post a dozen times imbedded within the folds of a letter, before it becomes affixed to one, and gets its career ended by an ugly knock on the face—for its countenance once disfigured, it has run its course. Besides their being so handy in paying a trifling debt or going on a merciful errand, the advertising columns of any newspaper will shew the reader many of the thousand and one ways in which he may turn his spare postage-stamps to account. You may suddenly fall upon a promise of an easy competence for the insignificant acknowledgment of half-a-crown's worth of this article. Friends to humanity assure you a prompt remittance of thirteen Queen's heads will secure you perfect exemption from all the ills that flesh is heir to. For the same quantity another who does the prophetic strain, will tell you which horse will win the Derby, "as surely as if you stood at the winning-post on the very day." "Stable Boy," promises all subscribers of twelve stamps that if they "do not win on this event, he will never put his name in print again." Of course all this is quackery, or worse; still the reader need not be told how in innumerable bonâ fide cases the system of postage-stamp remittances is exceedingly handy for both buyer and vendor, and how trade—retail at any rate—is fostered by it. As a social arrangement, for the poorer classes especially, we could not well over-estimate its usefulness. Again we see a good result of the penny-post scheme. Since 1840, not only has the use of postage-stamps in this way never been discouraged (as it was always thought that fewer coin letters would be sent in consequence), but the Post-Office authorities have recently made provision for taking them from the public, when not soiled or not presented in single stamps. This arrangement is already in force at the principal post-offices, and will ultimately extend to all. In America, as will be familiar to most readers, postage-stamps have formed the principal currency of small value almost since the breaking out of the present fratricidal war. More recently, the United States Government has issued the stamps without gum, as it was found inconvenient to pass them frequently from hand to hand, after they had undergone the gelatinizing process. Under an Act, "Postage Currency, July 17th, 1862," the Federal authorities have issued stamps printed on larger sized paper, with directions for their use under the peculiar circumstances.
The obliteration of postage-labels in their passage through the post, requires a passing notice. Different countries obliterate their stamps variously and with different objects. In France they obliterate with a hand-stamp having acute prominences in it, which, when thrown on the stamp, not only disfigures, but perforates it with numerous dots placed closely together. In Holland, the word "Franco" is imprinted in large letters. Some countries, e. g. Italy, Austria, and Prussia, mark on the label itself, the name of the despatching town, together with the date of despatch. In England, the purpose of the defacement marks is primarily to prevent the stamp being used again. It also serves to show—inasmuch as the obliterating stamp of every British Post-Office is consecutively numbered—where the letter was posted, in the event of the other dated stamp being imperfectly impressed. For this purpose the British Postal Guide gives a list of the post-towns and the official number of each. The mark of St. Martin's-le-Grand is a changeable figure in a circle, according to the time of day during which the letter has been posted and struck; for the London district offices, we have the initials of the district, and the number of the office given in an oval. The figures in England are surrounded by lines forming a circle; in Scotland by three lines at the top and three at the bottom of them; in Ireland the lines surround the figures of the particular office in a diamond shape.
It only remains to refer for a moment to the timbromanie, or stamp mania. The scenes in Birchin Lane in 1862, where crowds nightly congregated, to the exceeding annoyance and wonderment of policeman X—where ladies and gentlemen of all ages and all ranks, from Cabinet-ministers to crossing-sweepers, were busy, with album or portfolio in hand, buying, selling, or exchanging, are now known to have been the beginnings of what may almost be termed a new trade. Postage-stamp exchanges are now common enough; one held in Lombard Street on Saturday afternoons is largely attended. Looking the other day in the advertisement pages of a monthly magazine, we counted no fewer than sixty different dealers in postage-stamps there advertising their wares. Twelve months ago, there was no regular mart in London at which foreign stamps might be bought; now there are a dozen regular dealers in the metropolis, who are doing a profitable trade. About a year ago, we witnessed the establishment of a monthly organ for the trade in the Stamp-collector's Magazine; at this present moment there are no less than ten such publications in existence in the United Kingdom. England is not the only country interested in stamp-collecting. As might be expected, the custom originated in France, and has prevailed there for a number of years. In the gardens of the Tuileries, and also to some extent in those of the Luxembourg, crowds still gather, principally on Sunday afternoons, and may be seen sitting under the trees, sometimes in a state of great excitement, as they busily sell or exchange any of their surplus stock for some of which they may have been in search. The gathering of a complete set of postage-stamps, and a proper arrangement of them, is at least a harmless and innocent amusement. On this point, however, we prefer, in conclusion, to let Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, speak,[179] and our readers to judge for themselves. "The use and charm of collecting any kind of object is to educate the mind and the eye to careful observation, accurate comparison, and just reasoning on the differences and likenesses which they present, and to interest the collector in the design or art shown in their creation or manufacture, and the history of the country which produces or uses the objects collected. The postage-stamps afford good objects for all these branches of study, as they are sufficiently different to present broad outlines for their classification; and yet some of the variations are so slight, that they require minute examination and comparison to prevent them from being overlooked. The fact of obtaining stamps from so many countries, suggests to ask what were the circumstances that induced the adoption, the history of the countries which issue them, and the understanding why some countries (like France) have considered it necessary, in so few years, to make so many changes in the form or design of the stamp used; while other countries, like Holland, have never made the slightest change.
"The changes referred to all mark some historical event of importance—such as the accession of a new king, a change in the form of government, or the absorption of some smaller state into some larger one; a change in the currency, or some other revolution. Hence, a collection of postage-stamps may be considered, like a collection of coins, an epitome of the history of Europe and America for the last quarter of a century; and at the same time, as they exhibit much variation in design and in execution as a collection of works of art on a small scale, showing the style of art of the countries that issue them, while the size of the collection, and the number in which they are arranged and kept, will show the industry, taste, and neatness of the collector."