t; they link the
past with the present; they mark the march of empires and the
federation of states, the rise and fall of dynasties, and the peaceful
extension of postal communication between the peoples of the world;
and, some day in the distant future, they may celebrate even yet more
important victories of peace.

[Illustration:]

[Illustration:]

II.

The Charm of Stamp Collecting.

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, in a letter to a
correspondent, referring to stamp collecting, wrote: "It is one of the
greatest pleasures of my life"; and the testimony of the Prince of
Wales is the testimony of thousands who have taken up this engrossing
hobby.

The pursuit of a hobby is very often a question of expense. Many
interesting lines of collecting are practically closed to all but the
wealthy. But stamp collecting is open to all, for the expenditure may
in its case be limited at the will of the collector to shillings or
pounds. Indeed, the adaptability of this hobby is one of its chiefest
charms. The rich collector may make his choice amongst the most
expensive countries, whilst the man of moderate means will wisely
confine himself to equally interesting countries whose stamps have not
gone beyond the reach of the man who does not wish to make his hobby
an expensive one. The schoolboy may get together a very respectable
little collection by the judicious expenditure of small savings from
his pocket money, and the millionaire will find ample scope for his
surplus wealth in the fine range of varieties that gem the issues of
many of the oldest stamp-issuing countries, and which only the
fortunate few can hope to possess.

In all there are over three hundred countries from which to make a
selection. In the early days collectors took all countries, but as
country after country followed the lead of England in issuing adhesive
stamps for the prepayment of postage, and as series followed series of
new designs in each country, the task of covering the whole ground
became more and more hopeless, and collector after collector began
first to restrict his lines to continents, and then to groups or
countries, till now only the wealthy and leisured few attempt to make
a collection of the world's postal issues.

This necessary restriction of collecting to groups and individual
countries has led to specialism. The specialist concentrates his
attention upon the issues of a group or country, and he prosecutes the
st