t all men know it, England shall be great!
We hold a vaster empire than has been!
Nigh half the race of man is subject to our Queen!
Nigh half the wide, wide earth is ours in fee!
And where her rule comes all are free.
And therefore 'tis, O Queen, than we,
Knit fast in bonds of temperate liberty,
Rejoice today, and make our solemn jubilee!

The stamps were printed in the usual sheet arrangement of one hundred,
arranged in ten horizontal rows of ten. The black portion was printed
from line-engraved plates but the colored portions were, apparently,
printed by lithography. Consequently, three operations were necessary
before the stamps were completed and, as may readily be understood, a
three color process in such a small compass made exact register a matter
of difficulty. Thus on many stamps portions of the Empire are found much
out of place, sometimes wandering into the sea and sometimes encroaching
in an altogether too familiar manner on their neighbours. The new stamps
came in for much criticism, of which the following extract from the
_Monthly Journal_ for January, 1899, is a fair sample:--

It is not quite an occasion for captious criticism, and when we get
a beautiful colored map of the world for a penny perhaps we ought
not to criticise; but we cannot think that the design is a very
appropriate one for a postage stamp. The blobs of red are not
always quite correctly placed; we have even heard of cases in which
a little irregularity of "register" has resulted in the annexation
of the greater part of the United States, while England invaded
France, and the Cape of Good Hope went out to sea!

The Canadian newspapers are not quite happy about it, but that is
natural, as they are to pay extra postage in future to make up any
deficiency in the budget caused by the reduction in the Imperial
rate; we hear that even a Ministerial organ at Ontario complains
that the new stamp is too large to lick and too small for wall
paper! Some people are never satisfied.

The color chosen for the sea portion of the map was lavender at first,
but as this was not considered altogether appropriate it was soon
afterwards changed to sea-green. In addition to these two tints it also
comes in a very pronounced blue.

The line-engraved plates from which the black portion of the design was
printed have four marginal imprints consisting of AMERI