i Mr. Hugh Lofting has mage us I hig debtors by creation of Mrs, Tubbsund Dr, Dolittle with "di heir animal friends. Annie Carroll 'Moore, who supervises the children department of the New York Public' Library, snys of "Dr. Dolitt that "any father with a sense of nonsense and fave of animal and human: ind will enjoy reading it aloud." To try out the fathers ye are re-printing the story, of the Royal Mails of Fantinpo, from " Dr. Dolittie's Post Ofices" ° which describes the fastest mail service In the world, called the Swallow Bail, though: thrushes, gulls and and penguins assist with the deliveries in the colder climates.
A few years before this voyage of the Doctor's there had been a great deal of talk in most civilized parts of the world about mails and how much it should cost for a letter to go from one country to another. And in England a man called Rowland Hill had started what was called "The Penny Postage," and it had been agreed that a penny a letter should be the regular rate charged for mails from one part of the British Isles to another. Of course, for specially heavy letters you had to pay more. Then stamps were made, penny stamps, two penny stamps, twopence-halfpenny stamps, sixpenny stamps and shilling stamps. And each was a different colour and they were beautifully engraved and most of them had a picture of the Queen fon them—some her crown on her head and some without.
And France and the United States and all the other countries started doing the same thing—only their stamps were counted in their own money, of course, and had different kings or queens or presidents on them, Very well, then. Now, it happened one day that a ship called at the coast of West Africa, and delivered a letter for Koko, the King of Fantippo. King Koko had never seen & stamp before and, sending for a white merchant who lived in his town, he asked him what queen's face, was this on the stamp which the letter bore.
Then the Panis merchant explained to him the whole idea of penny postage and government mails. And he told him that in Eng. and all you had to do when you wanted to send a letter to any part of the world was to put a stamp on the envelope with the aween's head on it and plage it in a letter box on the street garner and it would be carried to the place to which you eldressed it.
"Ah, hah!" said the King.' "A now kind of magic. T understand, Very good. The High Kingdom of Fantippo shall have a post office of its ovn. And my serene and beautiful face shall be on all the stamps fand my letters shall travel by faster magic than any, of them."
Then King Koko of Fantippo, being a. very vain man, hada fine lot of stamps made with his pictures on them, some with his crown on and some without; some smile ing, some frowning; some with himself on a bicycle.
But the stamp which he eas most proud of was the tenpenny stamp which bore a picture of himself playing golf—a game which he had just recently learned from some letters, which had not travelled one inch from where they put them!
Then the king was very angry! and, calling for the white trader, the said:
"You have been fooling By' Majesty. These stamps you speak Jot have no magic power at all. Ex-Pi Then the trader told him that it! was not through magic in the stamps or boxes that letters traveled by. mail, But proper post offices had mail-men, oF postmen, who collected the letters out of these boxes. And he went on to explain to the King all the other duties of a post office and the things that made letters go.
So then the King, who was a per-_ severing man, said that Fantippo should have its post office, anyway. And he sent to England for hundreds of postmen's uniforms and Jeaps. And when these arrived he dressed a lot of black men up in [them and set them to work as postmen.
But the black men found the! heavy uniforms dreadfully hot for Fantippo weather, where they wear only a string of beads. And they left off the uniforms and wore only the caps. That is how the Fantippo postman's uniform came to be a smart cap, a string of beads and a mail bag.
Then when King Koko had got! his mail-men, the Royal Fantippo post office began really working. Letters were collected from the boxes at street corners and sent off when ships called; and incoming mail was delivered at the doors Scotchmen who were min-PLAWDS AND PLEATS PREVAIL, ing for gold in his kingdom.
And he had lotter-boxes made, of the houses in Fantippo_ three just the way the white trader had times a day. The post office be-old him, they had in England, and came the busiest place in town. he set them up at the corners of Now, the peoples of West Africa the streets and told his people that have curious tastes in dress. They all they had to do was to put one of love bright things. And some hhis stamps on their letters, poke po dandy started the idea of them into these boxes and they using up old stamps off letters by' would travel to any corner of the making suits of clothes out of them. earth they wished.
They looked very showy and smart But presently the people began Janda suit of this kind made of complaining that they had been rob-stamps became a valuable posses-bed. They had paid good money for [sion among the natives. the stamps, they saldy trusting, in About this time, too, in the power, and they had civilized parts of the world one of Dut their letters tu the boxes at the the things that arose out of all this corners of the streets as they had penny-postage business was the been told. But one day a cow had craze or hobby for collecting Tubbed her neck against one of the stamps, In England and America letter boxes and burst it open, and! {and other countries people began inside there were all the people's buying stan; p albums and pasting'
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.