I have been privileged to peruse various interesting communications from Mr. J. Quayle Dickson, chief-postmaster of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. In a letter to Mr. Chris R. Robinson, dated August 4th, the postmaster states that “all stamps are sold out.” A letter written a month later (September 11th) to Mr. Herbert W. Hawkins, reports, among other things the following:

The surcharged Fijian issue of stamps is now exhausted. The only stamps we have at present are the second (or Pandanus Palm) issue of the values ½ d., 1d., 2d., and 2 ½d. But there is a further item of great interest in the letter to Mr. Hawkins. “For your further guidance,”writes the good postmaster, “I might mention that I retain, by sanction of His Excellency the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, ten per cent. Of the amount of each remittance, as commission, on all orders for stamps which I fulfill. In proof whereof postmaster Dickson sends along a copy of his authorisation in the shape of an extract from the High Commissioner’s despatch of December 7, 1010. Therein the postmaster is informed that “from all remittances that may reach you in future accompanied by requisitions for stamps from persons who are obviously dealers or collectors, a sum to cover expenses of issue, book-keeping, custody of cash, etc., amounting to ten per centum of the amount of each remittance”.

So there! “custody of cash” is, I think, a beautiful thought on the part of His Excellency the High Commissioner. The authorisation concludes with the words: “These deductions will of course be credited as Miscellaneous Revenue.”

I wonder how the “Miscellaneous Revenue” will bulk in the next annual accounts of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.

It is an item that will have certain melancholy interest for “persons who are obviously dealers or collectors.”