POSTAGE STAMPS (from post, from Fr. poste, from MI. poste, station, fixed place on a road, from Lat. post us, posit us, p.p. of ponere, to place). Printed labels issued by individuals, cor porations, or governments. acting as carriers of letters or packages. to signify that the charges demanded by them for forwarding this mail mat ter have been prepaid. The postage clue or un paid letter stamp is not a postage stamp, but is merely a convenient means of indicating that a certain amount is due for a carrier's service which has been rendered. An individual or cor poration may, in countries where the law allows it, establish a carrier service between different points and issue stamps for the prepayment of charges. This was the origin and use of United States local stamps, which the laws at one period allowed, but now forbid. The suspension of the United States mail service in the neigh borhood of San Francisco in 1894, on account of a railway strike, produced a brief evasion of the law in the establishment of a bicycle mail route between Fresno and San Francisco. The postage on mail by this route was prepaid by a twenty-five-cent stamp. Such a local arrange ment has but little au thority and is accorded scant recognition. A high er grade is reached in the semi-official issues whose originators were, in such cases as those of the Balti more carriers, authorized by the United States Government. to charge one cent for the delivery of letters at the post-office. Postmasters' stamps have even more of authority. The United States Govern ment, being unwilling to un dertake the risk and expense of a general issue of postage stamps, allowed, in 1845, the postmasters of certain towns and cities to issue stamps at their own expense and for their own convenience to test the feasibility of their use. The postmasters of Alexandria, Va.; Brattleboro, Vt.; Lockport, N. Y.; Mass.; Balti more, Md.; New Haven, Conn.: New York. N. Y.; Providence, H. 1.; and Saint Louis, Mo., adopted the plan with such success that the Government undertook, in 1847, a genera] issue to supersede all the individual postmasters' issues.
The highest authority pertains to government issues, and consequently universal recognition is accorded to them. A sharp distinetion_however,
is made between established governments and pseudo-governments. The attempts of the Cuban Revolutionary Committee to raise revenue from stamps manufactured and sold in New York, which never prepaid an ounce of Cuban mail, and of Aguinaldo in the Philippines' to foist labels issued by his unrecognized government upon the collecting public, met with small suc cess.
There are two kinds of stamps, the adhesive and those which are impressed upon the envelope or wrapper.
Adhesives are attached to packages before mailing. The only exception to this is found in the case of some United States newspaper stamps. The newspaper set of 1865 was attached to packages of newspapers, but the stamps of 1875 and following years were attached to the stubs of receipt books, the receipts being given to publishers of second-class mail matter sent through the mails at pound rates to show the amount that had been paid by them. The use of these stamps was finally judged superfluous and discontinued. Official stamps are used by govern ment office-holders to indicate the amount of postage that would have been paid had their mail matter been sent at the usual rates. No money, however, having been paid for these, they are in the nature of official franks, hut a 110111bl:1i value is usually given them, the idea being to use them as a means of keeping the accounts between the dif ferent departments of govern ment.
The history of postage stamps begins with the issues made by Great Britain in 1840, under the administration of Sir Row land Hill. The successful use of stamps in the postal service of Great Britain resulted in the adoption of stamps by Mauritius, an English colony, by Brazil, France, Switzerland, and the United States before 1850. The example was followed by many other countries, and since 1860 nearly all have adopted the postage stamp as the most convenient means of indicating the prepayment of postage on mail matter. The establishment of the Universal Postal Union, by means of which the rates of international postage, the colors of the stamps to be used, and the regulations for forwarding are determined, has given great impetus to the issuing, of stamps throughout the world.