DUNDEE.

So satisfied were the Dundee merchants of a past age as to the originality and value of Mr. Chalmers' invention and happy suggestion that, on the 1st January, 1846, a public Testimonial was presented to him in the Town Hall of Dundee in recognition of same and of other postal services. This Testimonial consisted of a silver jug and salver and a purse of 50 sovereigns. Just before this period, Mr. Rowland Hill had been presented by the merchants of the City of London with a cheque for over £13,000, in recognition of what now turns out to have been merely a borrowed scheme, and which scheme was only saved from untimely collapse by the adoption of Mr. Chalmers' plan of the adhesive stamp.

In the present generation, again, the Town Council of Dundee have performed a graceful act to the memory of a deserving townsman, by having passed at a meeting held on the 3rd March, 1883, the following resolution:—

"That, having had under consideration the Pamphlet lately published on the subject of the Adhesive Stamp, the Council are of opinion that it has been conclusively shown that the late James Chalmers, bookseller, Dundee, was the originator of this indispensable feature in the success of the reformed Penny Postage Scheme, and that such be entered upon the minutes."

The above resolution of the Town Council is now, it will be seen, fully confirmed by the able and learned writers of the "EncyclopÆdia Britannica," after an impartial investigation of the subject—a confirmation having all the greater weight as reversing, upon evidence which could not be resisted, previously recorded impressions.Dundee is now a large and wealthy community, returning two members to Parliament; few centres of business have benefited more conspicuously from the legislation of the past forty years, including as the foundation of all mercantile intercourse that great postal reform which James Chalmers saved from failure and made practicable. Two generations have already recognised and given every credit to the services of their townsman—what further notice Dundee may yet take of this matter of national and historical interest originated in the locality, the "value and importance" of which has elsewhere been inadequately described, remains to be seen.