In this country Charles Knight—in as complete ignorance as was my father of M. de Valayer's experiment in the mid-seventeenth century—has always been considered the first to propose the use of stamped covers or wrappers for newspapers; and this he did in 1834, his covers being intended to take the place, as payers of postage, of the duty stamp, when that odious “tax on knowledge” should be abolished. Had it been possible under the old postal system to prepay letter-postage as well as newspaper-postage, what more likely than that a man so far-seeing as was Mr Knight would also have suggested the application of his stamp to all mail matter? _Letter_ postage stamps and prepayment had, of necessity, to await the advent of 1840 and uniformity of rate.[154] (4) “Finally, and in its results most important of all, the adhesive stamp was made experimentally by Mr James Chalmers in his printing office at Dundee, in 1834.” An untruth followed by other untruths equally astounding. Mr Chalmers, when writing of his stamps, has happily supplied refutation of the fraudulent claim set up for him since his own death and that of the postal reformer; and as Mr Chalmers is the person chiefly concerned in that claim, and was a man as honourable as he was public-spirited, his evidence must necessarily be more valuable than that of any other witness. He published his suggestions as to postal reform, etc., in full, with his name and address added, in the _Post Circular_[155] of 5th April 1838, his paper being dated 8th February of the same year. Specimens of his stamps accompanied his communication; and in a reprint of this paper made in 1839 he claimed November 1837 as the date of his “_first_” experiments in stamp-making—the italics being his own. In none of his writings is there mention of any earlier experiments; neither is allusion made to any such in the numerously-signed “certificate” addressed by his fellow-citizens of Dundee to the Treasury in September 1839. The certificate eulogises Mr Chalmers' valuable public services, speaks of his successful efforts in 1825 to establish a 48 hours' acceleration of the mail-coaches plying between Dundee and London, and recommends to “My Lords” the adoption of the accompanying “slips” proposed by him. But nowhere in the certificate is reference made to the mythical stamps declared, nearly half a century later, to have been made in 1834. Yet some of these over one hundred signatories must have been among the friends who, according to the fable, visited Mr Chalmers' printing office in that year to inspect those early stamps. An extraordinary instance of wholesale forgetfulness if the stamps had had actual existence.[156] The “slips” made “_first_” in November 1837 were narrow pieces of paper of which one end bore the printed stamp, while the other end was to be slipped under the envelope flap—a clumsy device, entailing probable divorce between envelope and “slip” during their passage through the post.