POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, TORONTO, 18th July, 1857. Under the Post Office Law of last Session, taking effect from 1st. August, 1857, Newspapers printed and published in Canada, and mailed direct from Office of Publication, will pass free of Canadian Postage. Periodicals so printed, published, and mailed when specially devoted to Religious and to General Education, to Agriculture, or Temperance, or to any branch of Science, will pass free from any one Post-Office to another within the Province. Transient and re-mailed Papers and Periodicals will pass by Post if pre-paid by Postage stamp--one halfpenny on each Newspaper, and on each Periodical, one halfpenny, if not exceeding 3 oz., in weight, and 2d. if over 3 oz. Postage Stamps of the value of one halfpenny each will be sold to the public at all the principal Post Offices (including all Money Order Offices), with a discount of 5 per cent upon purchases of not less than twenty stamps, and will be available in prepayment of Newspapers and Periodicals, and of Drop and Town Letters. R. SPENCE, _Postmaster-General_. [55] See pages 60-61. [56] =Canada Stamp Sheet=, IV: 184. The London Society's work gives the date of issue of the 1/2d. value as 18th July, 1857, and it is clearly seen from the preceding notice where the date was obtained. But it is more likely that the stamp was issued on 1st. August, the day the new rates took effect. The new stamp was very plain, as will be seen from the illustration, No. 4 on Plate I. The profile head of Queen Victoria was quite evidently taken from the head on the British penny stamp. The usual inscription, CANADA POSTAGE, occupies the upper part of the oval frame, and ONE HALF PENNY the lower part, but the value is not expressed by numerals in the corners, as on all the other stamps of the issue, the spandrels being merely filled in with a reticulated pattern. The stamp was printed in sheets of 100, ten rows of ten, with the eight marginal imprints as described for the series of 1851. The tables of statistics in the Postmaster General's reports give the number of 1/2d. stamps received previous to 1st. October, 1857, as 1,341,600; during the next fiscal year 1,258,920 were received; and between 1st. October, 1858 and 30th June, 1859, when they were superseded, 850,100 more arrived, making a total stock of 3,450,620. The balance on hand when the decimal series was issued was 60,660, which makes the total issue of the 1/2d. stamp 3,389,960. The normal color of the stamp is a deep rose. It is found printed on a soft ribbed paper, with the ribbing both horizontal and vertical, as well as on the ordinary hard white wove paper of this issue in both the thin and thicker qualities. The London Society's work has the following remarks:[57]--