plan was definitely abandoned by the office in favor of the dated stamps, with which every one is now familiar. In six or eight weeks from this time an Act of Parliament was passed calling in the private stock of stamps dispersed throughout the country, and authorizing the issue of the new dated ones. Thus was inaugurated a system that has been in operation some forty-five years, successfully preventing that source of fraud from which the revenue had so severely suffered. If anything like Sir Charles Presley's estimate of L100,000 per annum was correct, this saving must now amount to some millions sterling; but whatever the varying amount might have been, it is certain that so important and long established a system as that in use at the Stamp Office would never have been voluntarily broken up by its own officials, except under the strongest conviction that the losses were very great, and that the new order of things would prove an effectual barrier to future fraud. During all the bustle of this great change no steps had been taken to install the inventor in the office. Lord Althorp had resigned, and no one seemed to have authority to do anything. All sorts of half promises and excuses followed each other, with long delays between, and Mr. Bessemer gradually saw the whole thing sliding out of his grasp. Instead of holding fast to the first plan, which they could not have executed without his aid and special knowledge, he had, in all the trustfulness of youthful inexperience, shown them another plan, so simple that they could put it in operation without any assistance. He had no patent to fall back upon, and could not go to law, even if he wished to do so, for he was reminded, when pressing for mere money out of pocket, that he had done all the work voluntarily. Wearied and disgusted, he at last ceased to waste time in calling at the Stamp Office, and he felt that nothing but increased exertions could make up for the loss of some nine months of toil and expenditure. Thus, sad and dispirited, and with a burning sense of injustice overpowering all other feelings, he went from the Stamp Office, too proud to ask as a favor that which was indubitably his just right, and he adds, "Up to this hour I have never received one shilling or any kind of acknowledgment whatever from the British Government." It is notorious, adds the editor, that some of the most renowned and invaluable inventions of recent years, especially those connected with the navy, have narrowly escaped rejection by permanent but ignorant officials; and that the authors of the inventions have had to submit to delay, loss, annoyance, and contumely before their processes could be tried, even after their success had been officially demonstrated. Perhaps it is not now so much a question of money, for it is to be hoped that Mr. Bessemer is reaping the due reward of ingenuity and skill in other fields of invention. But even his discoveries in steel making, if they have very properly enriched