Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/189

 ii s. in. MAP., n, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

183

Davidis Camerarii Scoti, De Scotorum forti- tudine, doctrina & pietate, ac de ortu & progressu hseresis in regnis Seotiee & Angliae. Libri quatuor. Nunc primum in lucem editi. Parisiis, sumptibus Petri Baillet, via lacobsea, sub Gallo & Leone repente. 1631.

I shall be grateful for any further biblio- graphical notes on either of the brothers. P. J. ANDERSON.

Aberdeen University Library.

THE FIRST PERFORATED POSTAGE STAMPS.

[Having failed to obtain information in various works, including ' The Life of Sir Rowland Hill,' by his daughter, and Sir Henry Cole's ' Fifty Years of Public Life,' as to the date of the first perforated stamp, I wrote to Mr. Fred J. Melville, and he has most courteously supplied the in- formation required. JOHN COLLINS FRANCIS.]

THE penny English stamps were first issued to the public in perforated sheets about February, 1854. The earliest dated (post- marked) copy of the stamp known to collec- tors is February 20th, 1854. Prior to this, however, and during the period of Mr. Henry Archer's experiments, a few of the results of his trials, and the subsequent trials of Mr. James N. Napier, the mechanical engineer who perfected the Archer machine, were used in the post. Some of these trial sheets were supplied to the House of Com- mons Post Office for the use of Members of Parliament during 1851.

The plan was first invented by Archer in the autumn of 1847, and was submitted to the Postmaster-General about October of that year. The report of the practical department of the Post Office on the useful- ness of the invention was dated October 14, and on October 25th Archer stated in writing his terms for making a perforating machine for the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. On January 17, 1848, the Board of Inland Revenue authorized Mr. Archer to give a trial to the plan as an experimental measure.

Archer's first idea was to pierce the paper by means of rollers, but this was not success- ful. He then conceived the plan of punching out the holes in the paper by means of short flat-ended steel wires, or punches, fixed vertically over a matrix steel plate, the holes in. which corresponded in position and diameter with the punches which were to descend into the holes.

On November 23, 1848, Archer took out Letters Patent for his invention, and on December 6 the machine was first tried at the works of Messrs. Bacon and Petch (the printers of the British postage stamps of that

period). Archer complained that the sheets were inserted in his machine while the gum was wet, so that the holes got clogged and rendered the experiment a failure. The next trial was at Somerset House about January, 1850.

Archer's machine was rendered practicable by the mechanical skill of Mr. Napier, to whom the experiments were entrusted after the government acquired Archer's rights. This, however, need not lessen our apprecia- tion of Archer's invention. He was not a mechanic, but he worked out his plan, with mechanical assistance, on lines which to a large extent have not been superseded to this day. For instance, our British stamps are still perforated by machines (teimed " comb " machines) which, like Archer's, perforate three sides of each stamp in a row at one descent of the punches, thus :

The next descent of the pins completes the perforating of the first row and partly per- forates the next row, and so on.

" Harrow " machines perforate a whole sheet at one descent, but they are not much used, so it must be assumed that the advan- tage of speed which they present (at least in theory) do not counterbalance the dis- advantages of the breaking of the punches, and the difficulty of perfect register. Rotary machines, which would be preferable to the " harrows " for speed, are used in the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, but the results are very poor, on account of the variation in the shrinkage of the paper subsequent to its being dampened for printing from engraved steel plates. This shrinkage is so uneven that the perforations ruin a large proportion (until recently 9 per cent) of the printed sheets.

Although the new stamps of King George's reign are to be produced in a newly built factory with the most modern equipment, I understand that rotary perforators will not be used. FRED. J. MELVILLE.

'LUCRECE' AND 'THE PASSIONATE

PILGRIM ' : NEW READINGS. IN the First Quarto 11. 1544-5 of ' Lucrece ' are printed thus :

To me came Tarquin armed to beguild With outward honestie, but &c. Malone placed a semicolon at " armed," and (following the lead of Gildon and Sewell) substituted "so" for "to"; but, as Mr.