STAMPS 



STANDING STONES 



677 



proceedings unless the party producing it is willing 

 to pay the duty and an additional penalty. Stamp- 

 duties are a form of indirect taxation. It is admitted 

 that they ought to be moderate in amount ; exces- 

 sive duties on negotiable instruments, transfers of 

 property, or legal proceedings would operate to the 

 discouragement of business. The amount of the 

 stamp-duties received in the United Kingdom has 

 risen from 6,726,817 in 1840 to 8,040,091 in 1859- 

 60, 11,306,914 in 1879-80, and 13,460,000 in 1890- 

 91. See Tilsley, Stamp Laws. During the Ameri- 

 can civil war (1861-65) stamp-taxes were laid on 

 all manner of legal documents, bank drafts, cheques, 

 and on the packages of various kinds of manufac- 

 tured goods, but these were gradually withdrawn. 

 The last stamp-taxes on matches, proprietary 

 articles, playing cards, bank cheques and drafts 

 were repealed in 1883 : and the revenue from adhe- 

 sive stamps, which was $4,140,175 in 1863, rose to 

 816,544,043 in 1870, and was $7,053,053 in the last 

 year, vanished from the internal revenue returns. 

 Forgery (q.v.) of stamps is severely punished. 



Stamps for postal purposes were used, or were 

 proposed to be used, in Paris as far back as 1653. 

 Stamped paper or covers, both with impressed and 

 embossed stamps, were used for official correspond- 

 ence in the kingdom of Sardinia in 1819-21, several 

 values being provided for. Mr Charles Knight sug- 

 gested stamped covers for the prepayment of news- 

 paper postage in 1833-34. Stamps or labels, to In- 

 gummed or pasted on articles liable to duty, have 

 been in use by the British Revenue authorities ever 

 since 1802, though prior to 1840 they were not issued 

 ready gummed. The use, for postal purposes, of a 

 piece of paper just large enough to bear the 

 stamp, with a glutinous wash on the back rendered 

 adhesive by moisture, was recommended by Sir 

 Kowland Hill (q.v.) as part of his scheme of uni- 

 form rates of postage, combined with prepayment, 

 in his pamphlet on post-office reform in February 

 1837. 



Not till after the death of Sir Rowland Hill in 

 1879 was it disputed that the credit of the adhesive 

 pontage-stamp was due to him ; though in 1846 Mr 

 James Chalmers, a )>ookseller of Dundee, received 

 a testimonial from his fellow-citizens for the post- 

 office reforms advocated by him, including the use 

 of adhesive stamps ; but from 1879 onwards till 

 1891 a pamphlet controversy was carried on by Mr 

 Patrick Chalmers, insisting that the credit was 

 wholly due to his father. The idea, it was affirmed, 

 wag fully developed as early as 1834. Specimen 

 stamps were, it was said, made and exhibited in 

 that or the next ^year on Mr Chalmers's premises, 

 who submitted his plan to the Treasury in 1839, 

 which was then, but not before, taken up by Sir 

 Rowland Hill. This, however, was denied by 

 Mr Pearson Hill (Sir Rowland's son). Mr Hill 

 read an elaborate statement on the subject before 

 the London Philatelic Society in November 1881, 

 pointing out that while the use of adhesive stamps 

 was proposed by Sir R. Hill in February 1837, 

 Mr James Chalmers's own letters, still preserved, 

 give November 1837 as the date at which he first 



5ut forward his scheme, and that when in 1840 Mr 

 . Chalmers's attention was called to Sir R. Hill's 

 proposals of February 1837, he at once abandoned 

 his claim to priority. The Philatelic Society de- 

 cided that Mr P. Chalmers had failed to produce 

 any evidence that Sir Rowland Hill had derived 

 the idea from Mr James Chalmers. Both seem to 

 have hit on the plan independently : but the use 

 of adhesive postage-stamps without uniform postal 

 rates, and at a time when the practice of sending 

 letters unpaid was almost universal, would obvi- 

 ously have been impossible. Sir Rowland's reform 

 of 1840 for the first time made the use of postage- 

 tamps practicable. Mr Pearsou Hill's case was 



published as a pamphlet (The Origin of Postage- 

 Stamps) in 1888. Mr Chalmers also issued pam- 

 phlets with testimonies from two or three old 

 persons who, doubtless unaware of Mr James 

 Chalmers's own written statements, professed to 

 remember that his suggestion of adhesive stamps 

 was made as early as 1834 ; but no contempo- 

 rary documents to certify the early date were pro- 

 duced. 



With the postal reform of 1840 the Franking 

 (q.v.) of letters was abolished in the United 

 Kingdom, and postage-stamps introduced. The first 

 English postage-stamp (issued on 6th May 1840) 

 was black. The famous ' M already envelope," 

 issued at the same time, and intended to be both 

 cover and stamp, was not a practical success, and 

 was withdrawn the same year. Since then upwards 

 of 100 postage-stamps of various designs or values 

 have been used in the United Kingdom : in the 

 British empire (with colonies) upwards of 1600 

 different postage-stamps are or have been in use. 

 The red penny stamp in use in Great Britain from 

 1841 to 1880 underwent some hundred and fifty 

 minor modifications, of which in each sheet there 

 would be 240 varieties, so that for stamp-collectors 

 Britain itself presents a large field. 



Stamp-collecting began to be a common and 

 fashionable hobby about 1861, which spread from 

 Britain to the Continent ; and in 1890 there were 

 three collections of postage-stamps of all kinds of 

 which the aggregate value was estimated at more 

 than 100,000. The stamp-collecting pursuit is 

 called philately, timbrpphily, and timbrology ; and 

 there are numerous philatelic societies at home and 

 abroad which publish transactions or journals. 

 Rare stamps bring high prices. The Mulready 

 penny envelope unused is worth about 15s. ; a 

 stamp of the first Sandwich Islands issue of 1852 

 about 65 ; and two of Mauritius of 1847 have 

 been sold for 680. 



See works on stamps or stamp-collecting by Philbrick 

 and Westoby ( 1881 ), Evans ( 1885 ), Ogilvy ( 1883 ), Booty, 

 Hardy, and Bacon (1898). See also RECEIPT. 



Standard. See FLAG, CURRENCY, MONEY, 

 BIMETALLISM, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES, HALL- 

 MARKS; for the Battle of the Standard, NOHTH- 



ALLERTON. 



Standing Orders is the name given to 

 permanent regulations made by either House of 

 Parliament for the conduct of its proceedings, and 

 enduring from parliament to parliament unless 

 rescinded. A standing order of the House of 

 Lords when rescinded is said to be vacated; in 

 the Commons the corresponding term is repeahd, 

 In the Lords a motion for making or dispensing 

 with a standing order cannot be granted on the 

 same day that the motion is made, or till the 

 House has been summoned to consider it ; and 

 every standing order as soon as agreed to is added 

 to the ' Roll of Standing Orders,' which is care- 

 fully preserved and published from time to time. 

 In the House of Commons there was until 1854 no 

 authorised collection of standing orders, except 

 such as related to private bills. In that year a 

 manual of rules, orders, and forms of proceeding 

 relative to public business was drawn up and printed 

 by order of the House. Standing orders are occa- 

 sionally suspended when it is desirable that a bill 

 should be passed with unusual expedition. Sea 

 May, Parliamentary Practice. 



Standing Stones, or monoliths of unhewn 

 stone, erected singly or in groups, are met with 

 almost everywhere. They are not in all cases 

 necessarily of ancient origin, but the motive of 

 their erection may be presumed to have been in 

 general honorary or commemorative either of events 

 or individuals. In certain cases, however, they 



