"One plate of each kind and denomination of postage stamp reserved as above, and the dies and rolls from which they have been produced, together with all the cancelled plates, to be inventoried, waxed and carefully boxed and sealed, and placed in the vault of the stamp manufactory, in the custody and under the control of the agent." The committee were also to cancel any worn out and unserviceable plates of the current series, and to count and destroy the official stamps remaining in the vaults of the American Bank Note Company, of all denominations and Departments, numbering 17,024,588, of the 3 and 9 cent newspaper and periodical stamps of 1874, numbering 324,990, and of the 7, 12, and 24 cent stamps of the 1870 issue, numbering 1,414,300, a grand total of 18,763,878 stamps. On the 24th of February, the committee reported that they had carried out the order. A. D. Hazen, Third Assistant Postmaster General, who recommended this holocaust, says: "I have excepted from this recommendation the 3 cent stamps of the current series, of which there are 135,800 in the vault, for the reason that though their general issue has been discontinued, occasional calls are made for them by some of the larger offices." The reports show further that from January 1st, to June 30, 1886, 1,094,200 three cent stamps were actually issued. During the same period, 201,600 six cent stamps were also issued, while 645,950 thirty cent stamps, and only 29,620 ninety cent stamps were issued. As a matter of fact therefore these values, though retired from general issue, are more in demand than the two higher values retained, nearly 2 to 1, as between the 3 and 30 cents, 50 to 1 as between the 3 and 90 cents, or 9 to 1 as between the 6 and 90 cents, and that too when the general public is unaware that these values can be obtained at all. CONTRACT FOR 1885-89. The contract for the manufacture of adhesive stamps between the Department and the American Bank Note Company, expiring on the 30th of June, 1885, sealed proposals were invited by public advertisement of March 30th, 1885, for a new contract for four years from July 1st, 1885. The important features of the new contract to be noticed here, are _first_, that a definite standard of paper to be used for printing the stamps, made by an improved formula, was for the first time required, all other contracts having provided that the paper should be equal to a sample only; and _second_, that all ordinary postage stamps should be printed wholly by machinery run by steam power. "The two previous contracts, 1877 to 1881, and 1881 to 1885, expressly stipulated that the printing should be done on hand roller presses, the use of steam presses under the contract immediately preceeding the same, 1873 to 1877, which was silent as to the mode of printing, having resulted in extremely unsatisfactory work."