rces in South Africa,
do hereby nominate and appoint David George Amosi Falck
Administrator of the Civil Posts in such portions of the
Orange Free State as have been or may hereafter be occupied by
British troops.

"And I do hereby order that the Postal and Telegraph Services
shall be resumed in the portions of the aforesaid Republic
already referred to, from the nineteenth day of March, 1900,
under the existing Laws and Conventions of the Orange Free
State, subject to such alterations as may from time to time be
notified.

Given under my hand at Bloemfontein this seventeenth day of
March, 1900.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.

(Signed) ROBERTS,

_Field Marshal,
Commander-in-Chief British
Forces in South Africa._

The Administrator shortly afterwards issued the following

NOTICE.

It is hereby notified for general information that Orange
Free State postage stamps, in use up to the 14th inst., are
no longer valid; surcharged stamps of the same denomination
having been substituted.

(Signed) A. FALCK,
_Administrator._

General Post Office,
_Bloemfontein, March 22nd, 1900._

[Illustration: 98]

The stamps of the Orange Free State were successively overprinted
"V.R.I." and "E.R.I." (_Fig._ 98), and later on new stamps were issued
with the portrait of King Edward (_Fig._ 99).

[Illustration: 99 100]

Cape of Good Hope stamps were also used in the new Colony with a
special overprint reading "Orange River Colony" (_Fig._ 100).

A sixpence blue stamp of the Orange Free State (_type of Fig._ 98) was
in readiness for issue at Bloemfontein when the British forces took
over the control, and a few of these escaped the "V.R.I." overprint.
The stamp is familiar to collectors with the overprint, and strictly
speaking, without the overprint it has no record of postal use.

A type-set label was issued by the Orange Free State early in the
war to indicate the franking of official correspondence probably on
military service. The stamp has a border of fancy type ornament and
simple type inscriptions in three lines "IN DIENST--R.D.M.--O.V.S."

The so-called "Commando Brief" stamp alleged to have franked the
correspondence of burghers on commando is a bogus production.

KRUGERSDORP. The South African Republic stamps alleged to have been
used in this Transvaal town with V.R.I _typewritten_ across them are