The 2 cent envelope in red may have been issued on the 8th January, 1899, or within a day or two of that date, and corresponds of course with the one in violet and the 1 cent envelope in all respects. It was sold at $2.20 per hundred. We have already spoken of the 3 cent envelope, issued in April, 1898, as having been surcharged. This was due, of course, to the same reduction in the domestic rate of postage that operated to change the 2 cent envelope from violet to red, and which also rendered the 3 cent envelope practically useless. In order to utilize the stock of the latter envelopes, therefore, the Department decided on surcharging them down to a 2 cent value. This was done sometime during the week of 6-11 February, 1899, and we can do no better than quote the letter of a Canadian correspondent in the _Weekly Philatelic Era_[216] for details concerning it. [216] =Weekly Philatelic Era=, XIII: 204. OTTAWA, 17th Feb'y, 1899. Our weekly sensation was duly on tap last week, in the shape of surcharges, Canada's first offence, but an aggravated case. The Post Office Department announced that any holders of 3c. envelopes or letter cards might send them in to the postage stamp branch, and have them surcharged, and re-issued as 2c. emissions, the difference in value being made good by an additional supply of surcharged stationery or in some other equivalent stamps. It was not anticipated that a very large supply of 3c. stationery was on hand, and consequently the arrangements for surcharging are of the most primitive description. Stamps of soft rubber bearing the figures 2c. are provided, and the surcharge is put on by hand, the stamps being inked on black pads. The consequence is that the work is ill done, and we have as many varieties of surcharge as there are impressions, with quantities[217] of ink varying from a black blue to a light grey. I have seen one envelope with the surcharge on sidewise reading from bottom to top. Independently of the variations in printing, there are two types of surcharge. In the first, which I shall christen the "capital surcharge", the figure 2 is 10-1/2 mm. high by 8 wide, the heavy parts of the figure being 2 mm. thick, the thin parts 3/4 mm. The C is a capital letter 4-1/2 × 3-1/2 mm. There was only one stamp of this type, and when it had been in use for two or three days the difference in type was noticed and the stamp was destroyed. Any stationery surcharged with it will be exceedingly rare.