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 L13,000, 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 "Encyclopaedia
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.