dried. A great alarm was got up, a few years
ago, in consequence of a report that the
adhesive glaze used for the backs of postage
labels was manufactured of a poisonous
material. A prognosis was extensively
circulated of a variety of diseases said to be
engendered in the systems of rash letter-
writers who used their tongues to moisten
the labels. Even the cholera was traced to
that pernicious practice. The dreadful
ingredients of the diabolical manufacture were
said to be a mystery. That dark secret we
have succeeded in penetrating, and now reveal
it, for the benefit of our readers, in two words,
—Potato Starch!

Here let us anticipate a very natural question
—perhaps suggested to the reader's fancy
ere this: Why are the stamps coloured
red? For this reason—red is a "fugitive"
colour, and would shrink and change under
the influence of an acid; whereas black is not
fugitive, and were the stamps printed black,
ingenious swindlers would apply acids to
the obliterating ink used by the Post Office
authorities to cancel the stamps, and so
obliterate it.

Were we to take our readers to other parts
of Messrs. Perkins, Bacon, and Petch's
establishments, where their ordinary bank-note
engraving goes on, we might be present at the
spectacle of the creation of Spanish Bonds;
but we "close our eyes in holy dread," as
Coleridge says, and proceed from the Fleet
Street factory to Somerset House to notice
the manufacture of the Embossed Stamps;
—those "Queen's Heads," embossed on a
pink ground, which appear on the postage
envelopes. This process belongs to the
department of Mr. Edwin Hill, brother of
the great originator of penny postage. Mr.
Edwin Hill's ingenuity has invented the
very elegant "embossing press" used for the
purpose.

Four of these embossing presses, each served
by two boys, work away under a superintendent,
in one of the lower rooms facing the
river Thames. Each belongs to the class
known as "fly and screw" presses. The
screw descends, with its regular perpendicular
motion, to stamp with the die, the envelope
below, and to print the head on it, by the agency
of the head in relief, in leather, on which the
envelope rests. At every blow, a "punch"
strikes in, with a horizontal motion, to meet
the envelope, and thus trebles the number of
blows, by shortening the distance of the fall.
Another horizontal motion of the "inking
apparatus" brings a row of elastic rollers,
charged with red ink, from the "ductor" to
the inking plate, to find the die, and cover it
with a blushing pink.

Two boys, as we said, attend each press,
and supply the falling die with the envelopes,
—one to place them under the fall,—the other
to remove them. The envelopes are sent, in
batches, from the contractor, and each parcel
is first "fanned out," and then given to the
first boy. He places them one by one, (the
''fanning out" being an arrangement to enable
him to draw them nimbly, singulatim,) in the
"guiding apparatus," under the fall of the
die. This "guiding apparatus" is a neat
form, suited to the shape of the envelope; so
that no interruption—nothing approaching to
a ruffle—ever takes place. The envelope
glides in from the left—receives the stamp,
which makes it worth a penny—and passes
on with dazzling rapidity and neatness to the
right. The beauty of the machine is in the
harmony with which the various and contrary
motions work together.

The daily issue of these envelopes averages
sixty thousand,—a number, which, if laid
together, row by row, would extend from four
to five miles. They first came into use in
1841. The profile is the work of the late
Mr. William Wyon, the Engraver to the
Mint. The "Compound printing," or art of
tinting the ground from which the Queen's
Head is relieved by machinery, was the
invention of Sir William Congreve.

Everybody must have found it more or
less troublesome to cut the postage labels one
from another for useful purposes. It causes
delay. Reflecting on this, a Mr. Archer
invented a machine to "notch" or "puncture"
them in their natal hour, which would enable
people to tear them away at once, without
the application of knife or scissors. A
correspondence with the "Stamps and Taxes"
was then opened on this matter, and Mr.
Archer's proposal—particularly as he wanted
no pay till the plan was successful—was
favourably listened to.

A "Return" containing the Correspondence
on this matter, and occupying thirty-two
pages, measuring some sixteen inches long
by twelve broad of type, lies on our table.
The most ardent admirer of blue-book
literature will hardly wade through the mass
of dulness it contains. Such, however, is
the astonishing power of human industry,
that the actual essence even of a
Parliamentary paper is come-at-able by its agency;
and we have been able to boil down the crude
mass to the following sentences:—Mr. Archer
was offered by the Treasury four hundred
pounds for the purchase of his perforating
machine, and two hundred pounds as a
remuneration for the invention. Dissatisfied
with the sum proposed, Mr. Archer offered to
furnish the stamps en masse, at a cost which
would save the country one thousand five
hundred pounds per annum. Of course, this
proposal made the authorities prick up their
ears—a piece of economy that would cut
down no official, being just the thing—but,
instead of giving the inventor the benefit of
his device, they wrote off to Messrs. Perkins,
Bacon, and Petch, and made Mr. Archer's
proposal a lever to screw down those gentlemen
in their charges,—in which the "Stamps
and Taxes" succeeded; and, satisfied with