Rowland Hill's first proposal in regard to the postage stamps was that they and the envelopes should be of one piece, the stamps being printed on the envelopes. But some days later the convenience of making the stamp separate, and therefore adhesive, occurred to him; and he at once proposed its use, describing it, as we have seen, as “a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with glutinous wash,” etc. As both stamps are recommended in “Post Office Reform” as well as in its author's examination before the Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry in February 1837, it is clear that priority of _suggestion_ as well as of _publication_ belong to Rowland Hill.[162] By 1838 official opinion, though still adverse to the proposal to tax letters by weight, had come to view with favour the idea of prepayment by means of stamps. Still, one of the chief opponents enumerated as many as nine classes of letters to which he thought that stamps would be inapplicable. The task of replying to eight of these objections was easy enough; with the ninth Rowland Hill was fain to confess his inability to deal. Stamps, it was declared, would be unsuitable to “half-ounce letters weighing an ounce or more.”[163] That the stamps—whatever should be the design chosen—would run risk of forgery was a danger which caused no little apprehension; and the Chairman of the Board of Stamps and Taxes (Inland Revenue) proposed to minimise that risk by having them printed on paper especially prepared. In the case of the envelopes bearing the embossed head, the once famous “Dickinson” paper, which contained fine threads of silk stretched across the pulp while at its softest, was that chosen. It was believed to be proof against forgery, and was in vogue for several years, but has long fallen into disuse. The Government, as we have seen, decided in July 1839 to adopt the plan of uniform penny postage, including the employment of “stamped covers, stamped paper, and stamps to be used separately,”[164] and invited the public to furnish designs for these novel objects. In answer to the appeal came in some 2,600 letters containing suggestions and many sets of drawings, of which forty-nine varieties alone were for the adhesive stamps. It was, if possible, an even less artistic age than the present—though, at least, it adorned the walls of its rooms with something better than tawdry _bric-à-brac_, unlovely Japanese fans, and the contents of the china-closet—and in most cases beauty of design was conspicuous by its absence, a fault which, coupled with others more serious, especially that of entire lack of security against forgery, fore-doomed the greater number of the essays to rejection.[165]