we drew toward land, he had to make me a ship of war, and so did I. He was frightened pilot, threatening, at the same time, to shoot to death, and instantly turned the vessel off me if I ran her on shore. I took the helm her course. That was the very movement to and ran her into an inlet. No sooner had we bring down the enemy in chase. I saw the passed the mouth than we saw on the bank danger and flew to the helm, and put her back the baracoons of the slave factors. They all again, and we passed by in safety.". knew me, and boats put off from shore. The "But are you not tired of this business?" Lieutenant hailed them in English and told "Why, I did n't want to go out, the last voyage. them to keep off. At the same time I hailed I tried to get another captain to take charge them in Spanish, and told them the vessel was of my ship. I wanted to stay at home and get a prize. That night they came off in force married. But good men in our business are and re-captured her. We put the Lieutenant scarce. And I had to go." and his men into a boat and sent them adrift, while I went down the coast and took in a cargo of slaves, and carried them safely across the ocean."

ness.'

Why, captain, this must be exciting busi

But the noble captain seemed ambitious of a higher career. "What I should like best of all," said he, "would be, to go privateering. To command a merchant-ship, and to go lumbering along, loaded down with freight that I cannot bear. It kills me. But give me a His eyes flashed fire as he replied, "It's well-built clipper, with six guns on a side, and splendid. It makes a man jump to think of it! a long Tom in the middle, and a letter of To be cutting away at the rate of eleven knots marque to range the ocean, and I would n't an hour, with a ship in chase, and walking call the President my brother!" right away from her!"

That instant we saw in the prisoner the rover of the seas, again standing on his deck, with the huge hull of a ship of war looming above the horizon.

Such was the substance of Capt. Smith's story. We allowed him to run on with his exploits, to see what stuff a slaver was made of. Was there ever a more perverted nature? Here is a man whose boast is in the gigantic "But how did you get caught at last?" character and the success of his villanies. His "The mate betrayed me. I never liked the courage is to show his power over the weak man. He was scared. He had no heart. and defenceless; to crowd hundreds of human You see it takes a man of a particular constitu- beings into a close hold, where a hundred and tion to engage in our business. When once at fifty die in a few weeks; and his greatest exsea, with a slave-cargo, we are in free bottoms.ultation to have defied the laws of the whole We belong to no country. We are under the civilized world! But the most important reprotection of no law. We must defend our-flection is on the weakness and negligence selves. A man must have a great deal of nerve which permits this traffic to go on unchecked. in such a situation, when he is liable to be New York the chief port in the world for the chased by ships of war, or perhaps, finds him- slave-trade! Thirty-five slavers a-year sailing self suddenly in the midst of a whole fleet. down our bay! Is this true? If so, why are The mate once served me a trick, for which I not these vessels searched and seized? On should have been perfectly justified in shoot-whom rests the blame! Do officers of the Goving him dead. We were running in between ernment connive at the traffic? Or are they the islands Martinique and Dominique, when so blind as not to see what passes under their suddenly there shot out from behind the land eyes? Or are they too weak or too indolent an English steamer. The mate thought it was to enforce their country's justice?

From Chambers's Journal.

In the principal thoroughfare of London, DOWN STAIRS IN SOMERSET HOUSE. cian style and beautiful proportions, known stands a large quadrangular building, of GreTHERE are curiosities enough all around far and wide as the Somerset House, and conus, if we choose to look out for them. Even taining many public offices, besides apartthe penny receipt-stamp, which John Jones ments for the accommodation of learned socigives to William Smith, in acknowledgment eties. The Government Offices, generally so of the payment for 'Mending tiles on top of called, are those more immediately under conhouse,' is a curiosity, in respect both to the sideration. In walking round the interior mechanical and fiscal arrangements connected quadrangle, and through various passages with it. It is of these penny receipt-stamps, which present themselves, sundry inscriptions and of stamps of various other kinds, that we over sundry doors meet the view, denoting wish to gossip a little; and the reader will that here is the Duchy of Cornwall Office, probably find the gossip not wholly without there the Audit Office,' at another place the interest or novelty. Registrar-general's Office;' and so on. But

the most busy of all, is the Office of the money into the Exchequer; while other 'Board of Inland Revenue,' more familiarly stamps are available in paying for porterage, known as the Stamp Office.' Men and boys, carriage, or transport. Let us see how this broadcloth and fustian, are incessantly pouring arises, by comparing receipt-stamps, docuin and out of the door leading to these offices. ment-stamps, postage-stamps, and newspaperAnd well they may, for no inconsiderable por- stamps. A receipt-stamp is valuable to the tion of the national revenue is here managed. payer and receiver of money, only because The probate-duty and the legacy-duty, the the legislature has chosen to declare that a land-tax and the assessed taxes, the income- stamp upon the receipt is legally necessary.— tax, and other taxes, the newspaper-stamps, A document-stamp-by which we mean the and the postage-stamps, the receipt-stamps, stamps on probates, leases, indentures, bonds, and the bill-stamps, the licenses, and the and such like legal instruments-is, in like stage-coach duty-these, and many other matters, are superintended by the Board of Inland Revenue; and a notable portion of the south side of Somerset House is devoted to the business of the Board.

manner, perfectly useless to the parties who have had to pay for it, except in so far as the legislature has rendered the use necessary.— But in respect to the postage and newspaperstamps, the case is different. Unquestionably Down stairs-our business is down stairs, the government thinks of the revenue in these to one, and even two stories below the level matters, rather than the convenience of letterof the Somerset House quadrangle; and here writers and newspaper readers; but this cona scene of utter bewilderment is presented. venience is not lost sight of, nevertheless.— How anybody can find anybody else is a per- The royal postman says: If you will put a feet marvel. Passages lead in every direction, penny-stamp upon every letter, I will convey and doors are thickly congregated on both any one or more of them for nothing, whether sides of every passage; and if we penetrate to from the Strand to Cheapside, or from Penthe end of any one passage, we find ourselves zance to the Shetland Islands'-and he does only at the beginning of the end;' for there it. And, again: If you will consent to pay is another labyrinth beyond. Young lawyer's an additional penny for every newspaper you clerks are popping in and out of two of the buy, I will convey any such newspaper, even rooms, with lawyer-like looking papers in their thirteen thousand miles to Sidney, for nohands; law-stationers' boys are elbowing thing'-and he does it. Hence the various them; errand-boys and porters, from mercan- stamp duties are very unequal in their incitile firms, have their budgets of papers; and dence on the public.

Somerset House officials are passing to and By the courtesy of Mr. Edwin Hill, who prefrom the almost numberless rooms. Pene-sides over the stamping machinery, we are trating to the remoter depths, we come to an enabled to say a little concerning this beautiunmistakable workshop, with unmistakable ful machinery, and also concerning the offiworkmen, employed in it by scores. Presses cial routine, by which the public is brought of very curious kind; inking-rollers of diverse into contact with the Stamp-office Departsizes; inks of various colors; stamping-dies of ment. different sizes and devices; perforating ma- Let us suppose that a solicitor has a legal chines of exquisite construction-all are document which requires to be stamped, in here; and a rare clatter they produce: order to give it validity. He takes or sends though, like factory clatter generally, it is it to Somerset House, where a Receiver's perfectly conformable with strict order and Office' initiates the official routine. The resystem. ceiver takes the money, say for a twenty-shilling stamp, and is responsible to the Board for this money: he makes out a warrant or kind of receipt. The document and the warrant pass from room to room, and from hand to hand, to undergo certain verifications. The document in its travels, finds its way into the What is the use of stamps? Do they ren- stamping room, where Mr. Hill's subordinates der us any good? If they, as stamps, are use- subject it to a process of dry stamping with a ful, it is only in a secondary sense; for, un- die. When all is ready, the solicitor-perquestionably, their primary purport is to trans-haps without having left the building, perfer money from the commercial pocket into haps in two or three hours, perhaps the next the Treasury pocket. Mr. Gladstone, or any day-takes away the stamped document, other Chancellor, of the Exchequer, wants which ever after is treated reverentially at money for public purposes, and he invents Westminster Hall. The dies employed for stamps as a means of obtaining some of this this kind of stamping, are engraved on brass, money. Many of the stamps are really of no or some other metal, and are worked by an public use, except as a means of bringing embossing-press, full of ingenious contrivances.

This down stairs region is devoted to the Stamp Office, as one department of inland revenue. Its machinery, material as well as official, is really gigantic, considering the small items wherewith the sum-total is made

up.

The dies, of course, vary greatly in devices, | for reasons that will be obvious, when it is and many niceties of adjustment are neces- considered how quickly the papers are dissary to suit the size and thickness of the doc-tributed to our breakfast-tables as soon as the ument to be stamped. This, however, is per-printing is completed. The newspaper prohaps mechanically considered, the most sim- prietors send reams of paper to the Stamp ple of the stamping processes, although it Office, cause each sheet to be stamped, pay brings in by far the largest amount of money for the stamping, and then fetch them away for individual stamps. If we remember rightly, by horse and cart, or by any other means. the executors of a celebrated London gold- From Monday morning to Saturday night, smith, paid £20,000 for stamping the probate there is thus an incessant arrival and deparof a will-a creation of twenty thousand ture of bales of paper for the newspapers, to pounds' worth of wealth to the treasury, by suit the various morning, evening, and weekone blow of the stamping-press. ly issues.

He

Pass we on to newspapers. Every one This kind of stamping has recently underknows, that at one corner of every newspaper gone a signal improvement. Until lately, all a red stamp appears-commonplace in its ap- was performed by hand process, and some of pearance, and a blot when mixed up with the it is still so conducted. A man is stationed at black printing. The die employed in this a kind of table, on which a heap of paper is kind of stamping, has often certain movable placed; he holds in his right hand a metal die pieces, which can be changed from time to affixed to a small boxwood handle; while near time—indeed, such is the case in many other him is a bowl containing several layers of dies, where the price of the stamp, or the day flannel satured with red printing-ink. of issue is indicated. But whether changed dabs the die upon the ink-bowl, and then or not, the die stamps the name of the news- dabs it upon one corner of a sheet of paper, paper. For instance, if we look at the second and the stamping is done. This is all a specpage of any number of the Illustrated News, tator can see; but there are sundry little we see a sort of heraldic device stamped in movements which only the man himself can red ink, with One' at the top, 'Penny' at the appreciate. How to turn over the leaves so bottom, Illustrated London News,' at the left quickly as to stamp 700 or 800 in an hour, hand, and Newspaper,' at the right. As to and yet not allow the corners to be crumpled the question, What constitutes a newspaper? the public have had pretty nearly enough of that in quarrels, and lawsuits, and parliamentary discussion; but in regard to our present subject, it is well to bear this fact in mind, that every newspaper must be stamped, and that other periodicals-like the Athenaum, or Notes and Queries-may be stamped. The Athenæum, for instance, sells largely in the country; and it saves trouble to all parties, if the Post-office authorities will convey the respective numbers to the homes of the respective purchasers in the country; this they will do, if a penny-stamp has been impressed upon each number. Hence the stamping of periodicals is chiefly compulsory, but in part voluntary newspapers are stamped, whether to go by post or not; other periodicals are stamped if, and only if, they are to go by post.

back, is a feat left to the delicate movements of his left hand. But ingenious as the process may be, it is certainly too rude for our goahead age; and Mr. Edwin Hill has invented a beautiful machine for effecting it by steam power. Little inking-rollers feed themselves with red ink, from a little reservoir; they deposit a little ink upon a little tablet; the die carries off a little of this ink; and by a very remarkable swinging motion, it hurls over and dashes upon the paper. All the movements are rigorously timed, so as to occur in their proper order; and by a slight movement of the foot, an attendant can stop the machine instantly. Mr. Hill assures us, that it cost him days and weeks of anxious thought to devise a means for effecting the very simple process of turning over the successive leaves as they are stamped: he effects this completely byIn the news stamping-rooms, we have to what shall we call it ?-say a little wind-mill, steer our course between reams and bales of the sails of which strike down the corner of paper. From the Morning Post we have to each sheet after being stamped, something dodge round the Economist; then the British analogous in action to the sails, or paddles, or Banner lies in the way of the Standard of vanes of the American reaping machine. Freedom; the Witness is standing on its edge, One newspaper, the great leviathan of the and the Guardian is lying flat down; the News press, is in this, as in many other particulars, of the World is nearly hidden behind the Wes- in advance of its brethren; the Times stamps leyan Times; and in trying to avoid the itself, instead of going to Somerset House to Patriot, we stumble upon the Watchman.-be stamped. When the daily impression of Not that these are actual bales of newspapers, this extraordinary journal became twenty, which we see, but there are red marks to in- thirty, forty, and even fifty thousand, the daily dicate the ownership of each. Newspapers carrying to and fro of so many tons of paper are stamped before, not after being printed-became an onerous work. A cure has been

found a very rational cure, avaliable in other with the kind of engine-turned ornamentation directions when circumstances render it desi- by a peculiar engraving-machine. The die, rable. The proprietors of the Times have thus engraved, is hardened by a careful applibeen furnished by the Stamp Office with a die, cation of heat. A small circular steel roller which is fixed to the form of type on the great is then softened, and is rolled with intense printing-cylinder. This die prints its impress force over the steel die, receiving in relief the at the same time, and in the same manner, as device which the die contained in intaglio. the rest of the printing is effected. A correct This roller, being in its turn hardened, is rollbalance of accounts between the proprietors ed forcibly over a steel plate, on which it and the Stamp Office is effected by the aid of leaves an impress in intaglio; and this is done a tell-tale or register, a species of clock-work 240 times on one plate, to give the 240 stamps which shews how often the cylinder has rota- which form a pound's worth of penny Queen's ted, and how many pennies are payable for heads. One original die will impress many the number of sheets stamped. All other rollers, and one roller will impress many plates, newspapers are thus stamped before the print- so that the original engraving becomes almost ing; the Times, during the printing. imperishable; and it is to this that the exact Among the busy workers in the busy rooms similarity of all the Queen's-heads is due. are those devoted to the Postage-stamp De- The printing of the stamps does not differ espartment. This is, perhaps, the most remark-sentially from ordinary copper-plate printing, able of all the varieties of stamping, on ac- except in the use of colored instead of black count of the enormous numbers with which we inks. After this, the backs of the sheets are have to deal. The postage-stamps may be re-gummed with a composition, in which potatogarded as of four kinds-penny adhesive stamps, starch is said to be a component. adhesive stamps of higher value, stamped envelopes, and stamped covers not in the form of envelopes. The last three varieties, however, are relatively small in quantity: the 'penny adhesive' being in an over-whelming degree the most important. The envelopes and the covers are stamped each with the impress from a single die-not worked by hand, like the primitive newspaper-stamping, but by a stamping or embossing press worked by steam. The die feeds itself with ink, and stamps the impress, by one movement of the arm, of the press; and it is curious to see how the men, by spreading out a number of envelopes like a fan in the left hand, can subject them successively, and with amazing rapidity to the action of the press.

But we have now to speak of a Somerset House process, which has cost a wonderful amount of trouble, ingenuity, and expensewe mean the perforating. Every one knows that the separation of the earlier stamps one from another was a tiresome affair, and every one is grateful to the inventor, whoever he was, of the method of making the little rows of holes which now render the separation so easy. Oh those little rows of holes, what a sea of troubles they have occasioned! In 1847, Mr. Archer invented a machine for this purpose, and offered it to the government; and for several years there was a kind of paperwar going on between Mr. Archer, the Treasury, the Post-Office, and the Stamp Office. Each wrote to all of the others; each made The adhesives' have occupied a vast amount proposals, which some of the others objected of ingenuity in bringing them to perfection. to; and-like four forces acting in different The engraving of the plates, the printing of directions-the resultant was not satisfactory the sheets, the gumming with adhesive com- to anybody. To see how Mr. Archer was reposition, and the perforating, have all called ferred from the Treasury to the Post-Office, forth many experiments, much mechanical in- from the Post-Office to the Stamp Office, and genuity, and a large expenditure of capital. from the Stamp Office to the Treasury, over And here we may usefully refer to an article and over again, would be a marvel to those published in the Journal about eight years who do not know how wofully slow the manago, concerning postage envelopes, a perusal agement of such things is in the hands of of which will render unnecessary anything government departments. The result, we bemore than a slight notice of the postage-stamps lieve, has been this-that Mr. Archer has reand envelopes here. Be it recollected, then, ceived a sum of money for his invention, and that the ordinary penny postage-stamps are that Mr. Edwin Hill has introduced the last not printed at Somerset House. The govern- finishing touches to the machine, which renment have a contract with a house in the City for printing the sheets at so much per thousand. The engraving is conducted in a very peculiar manner. A small piece of steel is softened, and while in a soft state, it is engraved with the Queen's-head' by hand, and

*Second Series, vol. vi. p. 57.

ders it so delicate and beautiful a piece of mechanism. We do not at all pretend to be able to divide the praise fairly among those claiming it: all we know is, that the perforating-machine now employed works admirably.

There is one little matter which few would dream of. All paper is wetted previous to steel-plate printing; among the rest, the sheets

.

for postage-stamps. Now, this wetting is not a year ago, the receipt for money received was and never has been equal in different sheets, written on a stamp, which varied in value acor in different parts of the same sheet. cording to the amount of money to which the Whether it ever will be equal, let future ex- receipt related. There were threepenny, sixperimenters determine. Now, as all damp paper penny, shilling, eighteenpenny, and so on, up stretches, unequal damping produces unequal to ten-shilling stamps. It is not quite so well stretching; and when the sheets have dried known, perhaps, that this tax was very extenafter the printing, the 240 Queen's-heads may sively evaded by persons who found many be all awry. If these were pierced with crooked ways to do a crooked thing. The straight lines of holes, and these lines parallel very fact that the average of all the receiptand equidistant, some of them might run into stamps issued was found to be only fourpence the engraved device, and might cut off the each, shows that the higher stamps must have word Postage' at the top, or the two words been ill attended to. The marked success of One Penny' at the bottom. Even to this the uniform penny-post system, led to the sugday the difficulty presents itself; and the way gestion of a uniform penny-receipt system. it is surmounted is this a boy stationed at a We forget who made the suggestion; but the table receives the sheets as they come from the government gave in its adhesion to the plan, printers, and measures each sheet rapidly by and an act was passed relating thereto in 1853. a gauge, separating the respective sheets into The act came into operation on the 10th of four groups. The sheets of each group differ October in that year. By its provisions, the from those in the next by perhaps a twentieth old and costly rates were repealed, and a new of an inch in width. The parallel lines of and uniform rate of one penny imposed as a perforations are then adjusted to these widths stamp-duty on receipts, and on drafts or orby a slight change in some of the working de- ders for the payment of money. The stamp tails of the machine. The perforating-machine may be either impressed on the paper, or af has a number of pins arranged in a row, and fixed by an adhesive composition, at the option fixed downwards to a steel block. The sheets of the parties; but where an adhesive stamp piled four together, are placed in the bed of is used, it must be cancelled by being written the machine; the pins descend and pierce over, so that it may never be used again. The them; the pins rise again; the paper shifts old receipt-stamps in the hands of any person onward to the width of one Queen's-head; the at the time when the new act came into operapins descend again-and so the process con- tion were to be allowed for, or exchanged for tinues. It is useless to attempt to describe new at the full difference of value. There here the delicate mechanism by which all this were other changes made at the same time in is effected; even to pull the pins out of the the stamps for legal documents, the amount of perforations which they have made, has called duty in most cases being much reduced. forth no small amount of ingenuity. Near No one has been more surprized than the one of the machines is a box containing that stamp commissioners themselves at the wonderwhich would puzzle many an inquirer: some ful success of this change. Only one short would say it is seed, some sand, some dust. year has passed, and yet the penny receiptIt is the assemblage of little circular bits which stamps have brought in more than twice as have been cut or punched out of the perfora- much revenue as the higher-priced stamps of tions, and each is a perfect little circle, smooth former years. The penny-post stamps were on one side and gummed on the other. What long in rising into importance: they brought a pity it is that such prettinesses are of no

use!

One word more about postage-stamps. We have observed that some writers on this subject have talked of billions of adhesive stamps. Now billion is an equivocal term: "according to Cocker,' it means one thing; according to other authorities, it means another; but if it mean a million of millions, then there have not been billions of adhesive stamps issued. The number, nevertheless, is surprisingly large; in 1853, it reached about 380,000,000 - much more than 1,000,000 a day.

The new penny receipt-stamps a recent development of the penny-system-have a history of their own, and that history is peculiarly connected with the Stamp Office at Somerset House.

It is of course well known that, until about

in L.310,000 in 1840, and gradually rose to L.1,760,000 in 1853. But the penny receiptstamps jumped into favor at once. Nearly 6000 persons in the metropolis alone applied for the substitution of new stamps for old at the time of the change; and we have been informed that 2,000,000 adhesive stamps, and 2,500,000 of non-adhesive, were required for this substitution. Some of the large firms apply for L.50, L.100, L.200 worth of penny receipt-stamps at a time. Taken in the aggregate, there are rather more adhesive stamps than stamped papers used by the public for receipts; but the two classes approach pretty nearly to an equality. From October 1853 to October 1854, the issue of penny adhesive receipt-stamps exceeded 50,000,000; and the two kinds together did not fall far short of 100,000,000-a wonderful proof of the vast num