Industrial Cameroons

HE definitive series of the Cameroons

will have designs illustrative of native industry and transportation. Rubber-gathering is a flourishing industry locally, and a native collecting latex will be shown on one of the stamps. Supplying mahogany for lumbering is another, and a native felling a tree will feature one design, the same stamp picturing a native floating a trunk down a river. The palm oil industry also is profitable in the Cameroons, and this will be represented in one design. The fourth selection depicts a herd of oxen crossing a ford (not a Detroit product).

In the School Room

WHEN one of the classes of the Cen

tral High School of Washington, D. C., began studying Greek legends not so long ago one of the pupils, Lawrence E. Gichner, dug some stamps out of his album, placed them within a steel frame, and had the exhibit displayed in a school corridor. Language teachers at Central High commended Gichner's idea of linking philately with the current lessons. The stamp designs used by him are as follows:

I. Odysseus throwing the discus, Belgium. 2. Phæacian runner, Belgium. 3. Kine of the Sun, Uruguay. 4. Odysseus' ships, Esthonia. 5. Odysseus returning in disguise to Ithaca, Roumania. 6. Penelope spinning, Roumania. 7. Neptune, God of the Sea, Barbados. 8. Apollo, God of Light, Crete. 9. Apollo throwing the discus, Greece. IO, II and 12, Mercury, various countries. 13. Vulcan, God of Fire, German Republic. 14. Juno, Crete.

15.

Diana, Goddess of the Hunt, Crete. 16. Delphi Oracle, Libia. 17 and 18, Ceres, Goddess of the Harvest, France and Portugal. 19. Urania, Muse of Astronomy, Brazil. 20. Clio, Muse of History, Portugal. 21. The Nemean Lion, Paraguay. 22. Capture of Erymanthus Boar, North Borneo. 23. Hercules, wrestling, Greece. 24. Capture of the man-eating Horse of Diomede, Italy. 25. Atlas and Hercules, Greece. 26. Jason sowing the teeth of the dragon, Bulgaria. 27. Chariot race, Greece. 28. Apollo driving his Sun chariot across the sky, Belgium. 29. The Fates, Salvador. 30. Romulus and Remus, Fiume. Charibdas, Panama.

31.

Surely an "educational" collection, and one certain to arouse high school students' interest in philately! (Note: Foregoing

British philatelic journals have not determined whether the new adhesives are selling at five or six times their face value but this controversy is not going to get collectors excited.

The statement that 190,000 complete sets, not including the Japanese paper proofs, are being printed, tempts one to do some arithmetic. The face value of the nine denominations is 20,000 kronen. Twenty thousand times 190,000 is-if we didn't drop or add any ciphers—3,800,000,000 kronen. Presumably the Austrian Government expects this amount to be donated largely by philately.

Question: Where are all these kronen coming from? Answer: Not from Austria's peasants and ex-nobles.

Question: Will collectors outside of Austria contribute the equivalent in money equal to these kronen? Answer: Certain Vienna postal officials will commit harikari if they don't. (Probably with Japanese paper stilettos.)

Question: Will all of these stamps be used for postage? Answer: There are not enough letters mailed in Austria in a year's time to absorb 3,800,000,000 kronen worth of stamps.

Question: Will you join a philatelic buyers' strike against European useless, senseless assinine issues? Answer: //&

!!!!

Airposts

IN connection with the issuing by Danzig

of "flying machine" stamps in values of 25m, 50m, 250m and 500m, as noted in "The Month" elsewhere on these pages, it may be stated, based on official advices from Washington, that a daily round-trip service by airplane has been placed in opera

tion between Danzig and Berlin. Air service has been established also which, takes in Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen and London. These two services together make it possible for mail to be transported from Danzig to London in twelve hours.

Meanwhile air parcel post service has been put into operation from London to France and Holland, rates on this class of mail matter ranging from Ish 9p to 6sh, depending on weight of packages and on whether the mail goes by express or nonexpress. Letters have long been moving by air from Great Britain and it would seem that, with the extention of this service to include transportation of parcel post packages, it was about time England began providing something for philately.

The Antibes - Ajaccio - Cagliari - BizertaTunis air service, connecting France and Tunis by way of Corsica and Sardinia, was opened in July, according to Washington advices, and an air service joining Cannes and Tunis is being planned. It would seem that France, too, should soon be issuing airpost adhesives.

An airpost has been established between Budapest and Paris by way of Vienna, Prague and Strassburg, the trip occupying eleven hours. The postal tariff is 30 kronen from Budapest to Paris, per letter. Another line, Budapest to Constantinople, has been placed in operation.

Spain is active, also. There is daily service from Seville to Lareche, Northern Africa, the line, operated by a British company, being subsidized by the Spanish Government, which plans to extend air-mail carrying to Tetuan and Melilla in Morocco.

In Argentina the director of the Army Aerial Service has proposed to the Minister of War that an airpost be established from Buenos Aires to distant points in Patagonia, the route to tap Azul, Bahia, Patagones, San Antonio, Rawson, Comodoro Rivadavia, Rio Gallegos and Ushuaia. At the present time the mail service to Patagonian ports is by irregular coasting vessels. In Algeria a route has been established from Algiers to Biskra.

Swiss and German authorities in cooperation are operating an air line taking in Geneva, Zurich and Munich.

Belgium is planning to open an AntwerpBrussels, Strassburg line to connect with a London - Paris - Lausanne-Milan-Brindisi

route.

The airpost service of the FrancoRoumanian Aerial Navigation Co. is operating successfully. During one month 126 sacks of mail were transported from Bucharest.

Agency Plans

a recent issue of Mekeel's Weekly Stamp News, Mr. Philip H. Ward, Jr., gives the following quotation from a letter received from Mr. M. L. Eidsness, Jr., Superintendent of the Division of Stamps, Washington:

"The Philatelic Stamp Agency has now reached the point where it has passed the experimental stages. The receipts of the Agency for this fiscal year will reach approximately $125,000 with every indication of exceeding that amount during the coming fiscal year.

"The Department has therefore during the past week allotted additional space for this Agency and increased the clerical force 100%. Special plans are now being formulated to fill all orders promptly during the next fiscal year with stamped paper in any manner desired, insofar as plate number, arrow blocks and center lines are concerned.

"Arrangements have been made with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing whereby representatives of the Philatelic Stamp Agency may select the stock needed for sale at this special bureau and it is believed that these arrangements will greatly expedite the filling of orders, inasmuch as practically all the stock received from the Bureau will be suitable for collection purposes.

"A new system of billing the orders to patrons will be installed, together with special invoices, which will protect the purchasers against loss or error, as well as affording the same protection to the employees of the Agency.

"The Department has ordered a large number of albums in which all selected stock will be entered, thereby insuring patrons that the best possible centering will be furnished at all times.

"It is believed that this new system at the Agency will be in perfect operation by August 1st, and will be open for inspection to the American Philatelic Society, which convenes in this city during August.

"The Department will be glad to receive suggestions from patrons for the better

ment of the Philatelic Agency. . . Suggestions will receive very sympathetic consideration.

"As shown in the past, the work of the Agency is of a very highly fluctuating character, so much so that at times when additional stamps have become available, the facilities of the Agency have become greatly overtaxed, due to the lack of trained clerks. However, four of the additional clerks now assigned to the Agency are being trained in the 'hobby' of stamp collecting and within a few months will be able to handle any volume of orders promptly."

POST 5BIT5

Cat. No.

COLONIA ERITREA 15 Cat. Net

CENT Price Price

*13 1895-96

25c blue

*5

1892

20c orange