at it is authentic. The corners of the stamp will
be decorated with maple leaves, which were pulled from maple trees
on Parliament Hill and engraved directly from them. Everything
indeed is correct and up to date, and the new issue will reflect
credit on Mr. Mulock's good taste. The engravers will take care to
make this permanent and ordinary issue a tribute to their skill.
The present stock of stamps it will take some months to exhaust,
and not till they are done will the new stamps be issued. It may be
about November of this year.

About a month later a circular was addressed to postmasters announcing
the issue of the new stamps as follows:

_Circular to Postmaster._
NEW ISSUE OF POSTAGE STAMPS, ETC.

The Postmaster-General has made arrangements for a new issue of
postage stamps, letter cards, stamped envelopes, post cards, and
post bands. These will be supplied to postmasters in the usual way.
Postmasters are, however, instructed not to sell the stamps of any
denomination of the new issue until the stamps of the corresponding
denomination of the present issue are disposed of. The filling of
requisitions by the Postage Stamp Branch will be regulated by the
same principle--that is to say, no item of the proposed issue will
be sent out until the corresponding item of the present issue has
been exhausted.

To conform to the requirements of the International Postal Union
the color of the new 1c stamp will be green and that of the 5c
stamp a deep blue.

R. M. COULTER,
Deputy Postmaster-General.
Post-Office Department, Canada.
OTTAWA, 25th October, 1897.

The Postmaster-General's Report for 1897, issued after the stamps had
made their appearance, also refers to the new issue and to add
completeness to our history we extract the following:--

Owing to the change of contract for the manufacture and supply of
postage stamps, a new series of stamps became necessary at the
beginning of the present fiscal year. New stamps ranging in value
from the 1/2c to the 10c denomination (inclusive) were printed, and
the first supplies thereof sent out to postmasters as the
corresponding denominations of the old stamps became exhausted. A
considerable quantity of the higher values of that series (15
cents, 20 cents and 50 cents) remaining over from the late