MYTHOLOGICAL STAMPS
SIR,—My friend, Stephen Bone, usefully reminds me of the omission of an alternative to royal or presidential portrait-heads on stamps. He speaks of the divine heads on ancient coins : let us widen the choice for stamps to a mythological, embracing heroes, patron and warrior saints. Thus for France there is La Republique and for us Britannia, already ruling the waves on the back of our pennies, or St. George slaying the dragon on the reverse of what were our sovereigns. There is a lower level of mythology in familiar, typical figures, " Marianne " for France, " John Bull " for England, but these are not for stamps. If ever there should be an international service the right god is waiting, Mercury, the Heavenly Postman, with wings to his feet. Meantime let us for home use keep the royal head, but symbolic in treatment, not photographic, since stamps are not identity-portraits for the police, and let us eschew the heresy of landscapes on stamps for which they are fit neither in shape nor purpose.—Yours faithfully, D. S. MAcCou.. P.S.—The banknote designs to which Mr. Bone would lure me would demand too much of ,your space.
i Hampstead Way, North End, N.W.z.r.
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