APRIL 3.] THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. 1123

399. Telegraph message-boys and other officers are forbidden on pain of dismissal to search among the contents of the waste-paper baskets for stamps, or to ask the public for used stamps such as those affixed to express-delivery and other letters which may pass through their hands. Officers must send to the Inspector of Post-offices all requests addressed to telegraph message-boys and others offering to purchase New Zealand used postage-stamps. On no account are such requests to be complied with.

400. Chief Postmasters are supplied with a stock of international reply-coupons for issue to post-offices in their respective districts. The coupons are for the purpose of prepaying the postage on replies to correspondence posted in New Zealand, and are for sale at 3d. each. A person wishing to prepay the postage on a reply to his letter encloses a coupon. The person receiving the letter obtains, at the office where he posts his reply, a 2½d. stamp in exchange for the coupon, and this stamp can be used as postage on the reply.

The coupons are to be treated as stamps, and accounted for accordingly by Chief Postmasters. Those sent to accounting offices are to be dealt with as part of the stamp balances at those offices; those sent to offices where there are credit stocks of stamps are to be treated as a part of those credit stocks, and those sent to the smaller offices, where there are no credit stocks of stamps, must be paid for by the Postmasters.

The coupons must be date-stamped at the time of issue in the space provided for the date-stamp of the office of origin. When exchanging coupons issued in other countries, an impression of the date-stamp must be affixed in the space provided for the office of exchange. The impression is to be made with a steel date-stamp and black obliterating-ink. Should a reply coupon issued in another country which has not been date-stamped by the issuing office, or has been wrongly date-stamped in the space provided for the date-stamp of the office of exchange, be presented, the coupon should nevertheless be accepted, and, in the case where wrongly stamped, date-stamped by the exchange office on the proper side, under or above the proper space. Any coupon bearing evidence of having been issued in a country other than that printed at the foot of the coupon must not be accepted.

401. Discount-stamps are of one denomination only—namely, ½d.—and are printed in sheets containing 240 stamps in each sheet. (See Rule 908.) Discount-stamps will be redeemed at their face value as set out in Rule 991.

402. Discount-stamps are not permitted to be used in prepayment of postage. No such stamps are to be cancelled if attached to letters by the public. If through any oversight a discount-stamp is obliterated, the stamp must be written across in red ink, “Date-stamped in error; not a postage-stamp,” and the ink allowed to soak well into the stamp. The letter itself should be treated as unpaid if sufficient postage, irrespective of the value of the discount-stamps, has not been affixed.

403. Telegrams bearing discount-stamps are to be treated as if the stamps were absent.

404. Beer-duty stamps are not to be accepted for sale from Collectors of Customs without the authority of the General Post Office, nor are requisitions for such stamps to be forwarded by Postmasters free of postage.

OFFICIAL STAMPS.

405. Official postage-stamps, meaning stamps overprinted “Official,” are supplied to Government Departments and officials, to the commanders of His Majesty’s ships in New Zealand waters,