PHILATELY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2299, 24 March 1898, Page 60

PHILATELY.

By Old jstamp. ■ A PHIIATELIC FABLE. (From the Australian Phi'ateliat.) Little Carl Kircboftr was a. stamp collector, fcuf", alas !ho was pcor. His longing teait yearned to possess many htumpp, tut his weekly ! " tasehengeld " could only procure one or two I additions to the album. He particularly desired a get of Russians, beautiful in their 1 coub'e colour?, bub the price was beyond his ni'jaDS. One day a splendid idea came into his head, and taking pen and paper he wrote a letter to the Czar ot Ruesia. He told in bis sweet and simple schoolboy language all his desires. " I am a little Swiss boy of. cine years. I want i seme Russian stumps for my collection. May it; please your Rnysl Higbness to send me ! seme?" He spent that week's pceket money i on the pottage and waited in feverish anxiety I for a reply. ! One day a large envelope, sealed with a great I red seal, came addressed to little Carl. It ccn- | taited a beautiful s«t of Russian stamps, comj plete. and all unused ! | TSomehcw the incident got into the papers. His Imperial Ms j- sty, the Autocrat of all the Rnssias, glanced into his secretary'^ office one rooming a few months after the publication of tiip above touching episode. i •' How insuy applications for stamps this morning, Pennaninkspy," he asked. i ' The sr eve tary f merged from a pile of letters 1 ttat p«Vf-',oxJfcd bitn like a snowdrift. "Fourteen thousand seven hundred and sixty-threr, j"t>ur Majesty ; and this is only a. small mail eoropared with yesterday's " " Tesr cS the stands and sell them to Fiiatolfcky the dealer, barn tte letters, and send -me ; round {he cash ; I want a few roubles this afternoon." Then winking at the secretary, -he remarked : "That was a great idea of mine sending the feltrnps to that Swiss kid ; it has kept me in cash for two months pai?t." And whistling Come, aiouse thee, arouse tbee, My meny Swiss boj ! his imperial nibs strolled down to the clab. • , " There are at present no signs of our new issue of stamps, but I Mipyc&e we lisaj look for their appearance how vory shortly • . ■ Here are sothh Sgur^s, frhowin^ aA a glance the use KKftde «f the s-u-st < ffi'-e m different countries'. America tent's 382 Setters, &c, per head; Switzerland, 110; Australia, 98; Great Britain and Ireland, 79 ; Denmark, 61 ; Belgium, 58 ; Holland, 52 ; Frarce and Algiers, 50 Cr, lo puv it m another way, for tve ylO iettf-rs Ff-Lt sy an American (he Swiss sends 7, tkfc Australian 6, the 8.-itisher 5. the Dane 4-, ike Belgian 3£, the Frenchman 3, the Dutchman 3, the German 2^, the Canadian, Swede, and Korwedian 2, the Austrian I£, and the Italian 1. • . • I referred lately to the facb that CaDada had intended to reduce her postal rates. The good intention has, iio-?,ever, been postponed. The Bomiutun authorities have found that a raatcej 1 Ifke this, involving the co-operation of cili^r countries, cannot be minaged by a stroke of the pen. They have been advised, at any rale, from London that it will be well in the first place to have a conference on the subject, ' r.o 8» to bring about mutual p'sfcal conditions beiween the various colonies and the mofher country. Pending this conference the pn pored H-duction is in abeyance. The bebef in libe Dominion is that when a decision i<? arrived al; it will be on an even moie popular basis than that originally contemplated. The is*ue, it ia thought, will mean a lowering of colonial periodical and newspaper raits as well as letter postage. * . • A few f <?.<?tß on London's letters will not be uninteresting. One and thive-quarter million letters are delivered every day in the metropolis, and every day of the week — the postal week being only six days in London — 9000 letters rench the London Returned Lnter Cffieo, beside 3000 other despatches. PJvery day 460 letters addressed to London have to be returned unopened to foreign countries, and 7000 a day are leturned to the senders in this country. • . • Investment in postage stampp, s&id Mr James Field in his inaugural address in London as president of the Auctioneers' Institute, was manifested by the more recent uses to which auctions had been pub for the sale of postage stamps. The extraordinary volume of these sales might be grasped from the fact that in the nine years since these auctions were started one firm had sold abont £150,000 worth of stamps. During the earlier years the average was low, but now £20,000 per season was a moderate turnover. For the past 12 or 18 months it had been a lament to him not to be the freeholder of s publichouse ; but text to the possession of such a mine of wealth it would appear that to inherit a first-class collection of usc-d cr unused postage stamps was noi a bad substitute. A fair pzice fc* a Barbadots l-a surcharged Id stamp would be lOOgs ; for a Mauritius 2d blue postpaid unused stijj. ,->, £?40 ; for one which had bf»en used, £92 ; for a Ceylon 4d rose, unused, unperf.-iated, £130 ; a United Stites BrattleJuiv.'Ugli sbamp, £90 ; a Cape Id error stamp, ■£.Go ; a 4d do, £52 ; a New Brunswick 13 r,t:u«ed sfarap, £^5 and & Sandwich Islands 5c b : uo damaged stamp, £34. Therefore a collection of ordinary eize would run mto a very i&rge sum of money, and philately appeared to have lived over the period , tfcsojigU wbM »<i W&ty b Q PAMesi ft <4»z|

and the collecting of stamps to hava uocoaio I a profitable investment. j • . " Prophecy is ef ten rendered absurd by the subsequent event ; bub it is not often that one comes acre S3 quite so ludicrous a disparity between forecast and faob as the following, which appeared in Charnbers's Joureal of May 20, 1837 v — "We consider this (penny postage) one of tbe most visionary schemes ever puti forth. Mr Hill, like most political economists, commits the blunder of making no allowance for the passions, the feelings, the habits, and the stupidities of mankind. Imagine everyone having to bay stamps beforehand for his letters, or having to pay a penny with every letter posted. Looking at human society as at present existing, we are sure that it would never wojlc."