Among these are some of the rarest
postage stamps known to collectors; the best authenticated issues
emanated from:--

Athens and Macon in Georgia; Baton Rouge and New Orleans, in
Louisiana; Beaumont, Goliad, Gonzales, Helena, Independence,
and Victoria in Texas; Bridgeville, Greenville, Grove Hill,
Livingston, Mobile and Uniontown in Alabama; Charleston and
Spartanburg in South Carolina; Lenoir in North Carolina;
Danville, Emory, Fredericksburg, Greenwood, Jetersville,
Lynchburg, Marion, Petersburg, Pittsylvania, Pleasant
Shade and Salem in Virginia; Kingston, Knoxville, Memphis,
Nashville, Rheatown, and Tellico Plains in Tennessee; and New
Smyrna in Florida.

[Illustration: 300 301]

The war with Spain produced a considerable effect upon stamp issues;
but the war tax stamps which were very popular with young collectors
by reason of their bearing a picture of the battleship _Maine_
(_Figs._ 300, 301) were in no sense postage stamps, though often
affixed to letters as small contributions to the war funds. Throughout
the campaign there were many United States military postal cancellations
used in Cuba (_Fig._ 302), Porto Rico (_Fig._ 303), and the Philippines
(_Fig._ 304), and United States postage stamps were later overprinted
for these and other former Spanish colonies, e.g., Cuba, Guam,
Philippine Islands and Porto Rico (_Figs._ 305-307). These have since
been replaced by definite issues for the Republic of Cuba, and for the
Philippines.

[Illustration: 287 288 289 290 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 302 305
303 306 304 307]

The United States stamps offer a very wide field for association with
war interest, many of them bear portraits of warrior heroes, and their
cancellations in connection with expeditionary forces cover a wide
range of territory from the neighbouring and troublesome republic of
Mexico (where the United States recently used its own stamps at the
post office of Vera Cruz) to China.

[Illustration: 308 309 310 311]

CANADA. Our great North American dominion gave us a patriotic Empire
stamp a few years ago to mark the introduction at Christmas 1898, of
Imperial Penny Postage (_Fig._ 308). It shows a map of the world on
Mercator's projection with the British possessions coloured in red,
and with a line quoted from Sir Lewis Morris's jubilee ode, "We hold
a vaster Empire than has been." The "bumptiousness" of the quotation
led _Punch_ to suggest a few a