y 1st, 1867, and as a mark of the importance of this event the
first day of July is now a national holiday known as "Dominion Day".

It only remains to say that Prince Edward Island, British Columbia and
Manitoba (not then organised) came into the federation shortly
afterwards.

One of the chief duties of the first Parliament, which met at Ottawa on
November 6th, 1867, was the revision and consolidation of the laws of
the various provinces now federated, and amongst these were, of course,
the laws relating to the Post Office. The Act passed for the regulation
of the postal service is a lengthy one and the only provisions of
special interest to us as philatelists, those relating to the rates of
postage,--are more clearly and definitely tabulated in a Department
Order issued from Ottawa on March 1st, 1868, to which we shall make
reference later. Before doing so, however, we make a short extract from
the Post Office Act insofar as it relates to definitions of various
terms and expressions, viz.:--

The term "Letter" includes Packets of Letters;

The term "Postage" means the duty or sum chargeable for the
conveyance of Post Letters, Packets and other things by Post;

The term "Foreign Country" means any country not included in the
dominions of Her Majesty;

The term "Foreign Postage" means the postage on the conveyance of
Letters, Packets or other things, within any Foreign Country or
payable to any Foreign Government;

The term "Canada Postage" means the postage on the conveyance of
Letters, Packets and other things by Post within the Dominion of
Canada or by Canada Mail Packet;

The term "Mail" includes every conveyance by which Post Letters are
carried, whether it be by land or water;

The term "British Packet Postage" means the postage due on the
conveyance of letters by British Packet Boats, between the United
Kingdom and British North America:--And the term "British Postage"
includes all Postage not being Foreign, Colonial or Canadian;

The term "Post Letter" means any letter transmitted or deposited in
any Post Office to be transmitted by Post:--And a letter shall be
deemed a Post Letter from the time of its being deposited or
delivered at a Post Office, to the time of its being delivered to
the party to whom it is addressed.

The Department Order addressed to "All Postmasters, and Other Persons