most appropriate subjects to be
illustrated on these stamps. He has called on the Bureau of American
Republics for some of the Columbian pictures with which it is
overflowing, and he recently took a big portfolio of them down into the
country to examine at his leisure.

One of the scenes to be illustrated, undoubtedly, will be the landing of
Columbus. The Convent of La Rabida, where Columbus is supposed to have
been housed just before his departure from Spain on his voyage of
discovery, will probably be the chief figure of another. The head of
Columbus will decorate one of the stamps--probably the popular 2-cent
stamp. Gen. Hazen resents the suggestion that the 5-cent, or foreign,
stamp be made the most ornate in the collection. He thinks that the
American public is entitled to the exclusive enjoyment of the most
beautiful of the new stamps.

Besides, the stamps will be of chief value to the Exposition, as they
advertise it among the people of America. The Jubilee stamps will be one
of the best advertisements the World's Fair will have. It would not be
unfair if the Postoffice Department should demand that the managers of
the World's Fair pay the additional expense of getting out the new
issue. But the stamp collectors will save the department the necessity
of doing that.

It may be that the issue of the current stamps will not be suspended
when the Jubilee stamps come in; but it is altogether likely that the
issue will be suspended for a year, and that at the end of that time the
dies and plates for the Jubilee stamps will be destroyed and the old
dies and plates will be brought out and delivered to the contractor
again. These dies and plates are always subject to the order of the
Postmaster-general. He can call for them at any time, and the contractor
must deliver them into his charge.

While they are in use they are under the constant supervision of a
government agent, and the contractor is held responsible for any plate
that might be made from his dies and for any stamps that might be
printed surreptitiously from such plates.

An oddity in the new series will be the absence of the faces of
Washington and Franklin. The first stamps issued by the Postoffice
Department were the 5 and 10 cent stamps of 1847. One of these bore the
head of Washington and the other that of Franklin. From that day to this
these heads have appeared on some two of the stamps of the United
States. In the Jubilee issue they will be missin