Canada: Its Postage Stamps and Postal Stationery Part 10

To continue again with the Postmaster General's reports. We find in that for 31st March, 1856, a note to the effect that the postage on letters to France had been once more reduced, this time to 10d. currency per 1/4 oz., which gave further employment to the new 10d. stamp. There is also some information concerning the registry system, but this will be treated later under that head. One item is found in the accounts to interest us:--

Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Edson, for printing 300,000 postage stamps for Post Office Department 15.2.3.

As only 3d. stamps were received during the year, this of course refers to that value, and the price charged is found to be practically one s.h.i.+lling, currency, per thousand, or twenty cents American money.

In June of 1857 the Canadian Parliament made further changes in the newspaper rates, etc., according to the following Act:--

20^o Vict. Cap. XXV.

An Act to Amend the Post-Office Laws of this Province.

[a.s.sented to 10th June 1857.]

Whereas it is expedient to amend the Post-Office Laws, in the manner hereafter provided: Therefore, Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council and a.s.sembly of Canada enacts as follows:--

I. [Repeals sections I and V of 18^o Vict. Cap. 79.][49]

II. Newspapers printed and published within this Province and addressed from the Office of Publication, shall be transmitted from the Post-Office where mailed to any other Post-Office in Canada, or to the United Kingdom, or to any British Colony or Possession, or to France, free of Canadian Postage.

III. Newspapers printed and published in the United Kingdom, or in any British Colony or Possession, or in France, when received in mails addressed to this Province, and directed to any place in Canada, shall pa.s.s through the Post and be delivered at the Post-Office addressed, free of Canadian postage.

IV. For the purposes of this Act, the word "newspapers" shall be held to mean periodicals published not less frequently than once in each week, and containing notices of pa.s.sing events, or any such newspaper published fortnightly or monthly at the time of the pa.s.sage of this Act.

V. Periodicals printed and published in this Province other than newspapers, when specially devoted to Religious and to General Education, to Agriculture or Temperance, or to any branch of Science, and addressed directly from the Office of Publication, shall be transmitted from the Post-Office where mailed to any other Post-Office in this Province free of postage.

VI. Letters and other mailable matter addressed to or sent by the Speaker or Chief Clerk of the Legislative Council or of the Legislative a.s.sembly, or to or by any Member of the Legislature at the seat of Government, during any session of the Legislature, or addressed to any of the Members or Officers in this section mentioned, at the seat of Government as aforesaid, during the ten days next before the meeting of Parliament, shall be free of postage.

VII. So much of the twelfth section of the Post-Office Act, pa.s.sed in the session held in the 14th and 15th years of Her Majesty's Reign and chaptered 71, as requires the Postmaster General to make to the Governor General of this Province, annually, certain Reports for the purpose of being laid before the Provincial Parliament at each Session thereof, for the year ending the fifth day of April previous to such Session, is hereby repealed; and it shall, hereafter, be the duty of the Postmaster General to furnish such Reports annually so that they may be laid before the Provincial Parliament within ten days after the a.s.sembling thereof, and such Annual Reports shall be made up to the thirtieth day of September previous to each Session.

X. This Act shall take effect on and from the first day of August next.

[49] See page 50.

Although the enactment clause made the above Act operative on 1st August, 1857, because of which we should not expect it to affect the Postmaster General's report for the year ending 31st March, 1857, yet we find this report dated 30th September, 1857, thus including the year and a half from 1st April, 1856. Among other items of interest in this report we find the following:--

There is very material economy of labor to the Department in dealing with letters pre-paid by stamp as compared with letters on which the postage is collected in money, as well as a manifest gain to the public, in the increased facilities which pre-payment by stamp enables the Post Office to afford for posting and delivering letters so pre-paid.

It is gratifying, therefore, to observe that the use of stamps is gradually gaining ground, encouraging as it does the hope that it may be found practicable and expedient ere long to make prepayment by stamp the prevailing rule in Canada, as it has for some time been in the United Kingdom, in France, and in the United States.

A reduction in the charge of Book Post Packets, when not exceeding 4 oz., in weight between Canada and the United Kingdom, of one half the former rate has been made.

To facilitate the pre-payment of letters pa.s.sing from Canada to England by the Canadian steamers, a new stamp bearing value at 6 pence sterling, or 7-1/2 pence currency, being the Canadian Packet rate, has been secured and put in circulation.

A new stamp has also been introduced of the value of one halfpenny to serve as the medium for prepaying transient Newspapers.

The above is the only reference we have to the issue of the 7-1/2d.

stamp. The accounts for the fiscal year ending 30th September, 1857, contain the following item:--

"Rawdon, Wright and Co., Postage Stamps, 165.9.6"

which must include the cost of dies and plates for the two new values.

There is no record of the date of issue of the 7-1/2d. stamp, as far as our research has gone. The London Society's work[50] gives it as June 2, 1857, but upon what authority is not stated. It will be recalled that a stamp of this value was suggested, in company with the 10d., in the Postmaster General's report for 31st March, 1854, as being the reduced rate granted in that same month on letters sent "direct from a Provincial Port, Quebec or Halifax," to England. The _Halifax Philatelist_ states:[51]--"This stamp was rendered necessary on account of the contract between the Canadian Government and the Allan Line of Steamers in regard to carrying the mails, and by which contract the postage was reduced." It hardly seems to have been very "necessary" when it took three years at least to bring the Postmaster General's suggestion to a realization. Besides, the Allan Line steamers began their service over a year before the appearance of the stamp, and the rate it represented had even then been in force for two years, nor was it reduced for many years thereafter.

[50] The Postage Stamps, etc., of the North American Colonies of Great Britain, page 14.

[51] Halifax Philatelist, II: 74.

The Postmaster General's Report for 1856 says:--

The month of May, 1856, was marked by the first voyage to the St.

Lawrence of the line of Canadian Mail Steamers, under the contract between Mr. Hugh Allan of Montreal, and the Provincial Government.

These vessels have performed the service for which they were bound, with laudable punctuality, and have crossed the Atlantic at an average speed which compares successfully with the performances of the steamers of the Cunard and Collins lines from New York and Boston.

The average time of pa.s.sage is given as--Westward, 12 days, 20-1/2 hours; Eastward, 11 days, 2 hours.

The design of the stamp was simply adapted from that of the discarded 12d. stamp, as will readily be seen from the ill.u.s.tration (No. 5 on Plate I). The inscriptions were changed to CANADA PACKET POSTAGE, which of course referred to the fast mail steamers then known as "packets,"

and not to any "parcel post" as is sometimes erroneously stated; and SIX PENCE STERLING, a new departure in labeling a Canadian stamp. Like the 10d. that preceded it, however, the corresponding values were inserted in the spandrels, "6d. stg." in the left hand pair and "7-1/2d. cy." in the right hand pair. The stamp is generally listed under its "currency"

value to conform with the rest of the set and avoid confusion with the regular "six pence" stamp. The normal color of the stamp is a dark green.

The 7-1/2d. stamp is known to have been arranged on the plate for printing sheets of 120 stamps, ten rows of twelve stamps each, this being to facilitate the reckoning in English money. The eight marginal imprints appeared as on the other values. There was but one supply received, on the first order, of 100,080 stamps which, if we divide by 120, gives an even 834 sheets. Now, if we but glance back at the first supply received of the 10d. stamp[52] we find exactly the same number, evenly divisible by 120 but not by 100. The second supply of the 10d.

stamp works out in exactly the same way,--72,120 makes an even 601 sheets at 120 per sheet. Is it not probable to suppose, therefore, in the absence of entire sheets or horizontal rows of the 10d. stamp, that the latter was also printed in sheets of 120, as previously suggested, instead of sheets of 100 as stated in Mr. King's article?[53]

[52] See page 51.

[53] =Monthly Journal=, VII: 8.

When the issue of the decimal stamps took place, on July 1, 1859, there were 17,670 of the 7-1/2d. stamps on hand, so that the total issue of this value was 82,410 copies.

As will be gathered from Mr. Brouse's paper, which we quoted in connection with the 10d. stamp, a similar variation in the width of the oval is to be found in the case of the 7-1/2d. stamp, but the extremes are not so great and it is therefore not so noticeable. A glance at the table of measurements[54] will show that the variation in width is confined to a half millimeter and that in height to practically the same amount. Of course the discussion and conclusions detailed at length under the 10d. stamp apply with equal force in the present instance, and the fact that the 7-1/2d. stamp is not found on the very thin paper probably accounts for the lack of extreme variations. It was printed upon paper of the same kind as used for the 10d., but only on the medium and thicker qualities. A pair of the stamps in juxtaposition, showing the wide oval and the narrow oval, will be found as numbers 67 and 68 respectively on Plate IV.

[54] See page 54.

The last--and also least--of the pence issues was the half-penny stamp.

There had been a need for this value since the introduction of stamps, for there were several rates that were impossible to make up with the denominations that were issued and which therefore had to be paid in money. Among these were the 1/2d. charge on newspapers from 1851 to 1855, the same charge per ounce on magazines and books during the entire period, the 1/2d. and 1d. carrier's fees, the 1d. rate on circulars and on soldier's letters, and the several 7-1/2d. rates for letters and for the book post with England. But the Act last quoted,[55] which restored a charge on transient newspapers, seems to have been the direct cause of the belated issue of the half-penny stamp. The circular announcing its issue is as follows:[56]--

POSTAGE ON NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS.

POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, TORONTO, 18th July, 1857.

Under the Post Office Law of last Session, taking effect from 1st.

August, 1857, Newspapers printed and published in Canada, and mailed direct from Office of Publication, will pa.s.s free of Canadian Postage.

Periodicals so printed, published, and mailed when specially devoted to Religious and to General Education, to Agriculture, or Temperance, or to any branch of Science, will pa.s.s free from any one Post-Office to another within the Province.