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Huh, learn something new every day. My entire understanding of the postal service comes from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Going-Postal-Terry-Pratchett/dp/0060502932">Terry Pratchett's "Going Postal"</a>, so it's interesting to take a quick look into the [vaguely] factual history of the postage stamp. <!--more--> 

This widely-circulated story is believed to be apocryphal, but <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowland_Hill_%28postal_reformer%29">Sir Rowland Hill</a> was a very real postal reformer and inventor. 

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<h4>you piao</h4>

1840年，英国发行了世界第一枚邮票。它上面印了英国<strong>维多利亚女王</strong>的头像。因为这一枚邮票是黑色的，所以有“黑<strong>便士</strong>”之称。

一百五十多年前的某一天，在英国的一个村子里，来了一辆由马儿拉动的邮车。那个时候，邮车到村里来送信是十分<strong>罕见</strong>的。所以，村里的人一听见马车声，便立刻从屋子里、田地里冲出来，围在邮车的周围。

<strong>邮差</strong>走下车，手里高举着一封信，大声喊着: “爱里丝·布朗小姐，有信！”一个姑娘轻声地对邮差说: “我就是爱里丝·布朗。”人们的眼光都<strong>不约而同</strong>地投向她。

爱里丝接过邮差给她的信，看了一看信封，便把信交还给邮差。“对不起。”她说，“我没有足够的钱付邮费。”

人们都很<strong>同情</strong>她，不知道该说些什么话。突然间，人群里走出一个<strong>绅士</strong>模样的人，从口袋里拿出一些钱币，说要替爱里丝付邮费，可是爱里丝并不认识他。

她带着感激的笑容对这位绅士说: “谢谢您的好意，先生，这封信我盼望了很久，可是现在我用不着它了。”

“为什么呢？”那位绅士感到十分奇怪。

“这封信是我的男朋友寄给我的。我们打算明年结婚。他为了筹钱结婚，只得到外地去找工作做。由于我付不起邮费，所以他事先交代我: 在信封上画个叉，是表示他的日子过得很好；画个圆圈，意思是他已经找到工作了。”

“啊！原来这信封里是没有信的。”那位绅士自言自语地说: “这种情形很不合理，必须改善。”

对于这件事情，他想了很久，终于想出了一个好办法。

他向当时的英国政府建议: “邮费应该由寄信的人来付，而且也不应该太昂贵，否则穷人是付不起的。为了大家的方便，我认为寄信的人，用一个便士买一枚邮票，贴在信封上，这样寄出去就可以了。”

结果，英国政府<strong>从善如流</strong>，接受了他的建议。这位绅士的名字叫罗兰·希尔世界上第一枚邮票就是这样诞生的。

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<a href="http://gushi365.com/info/4954.html">Read the original essay</a>
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In 1840, England issued the world's first postage stamp. The face of Queen Victoria was printed on it. Because the stamp was black, it was called the "Penny Black".

One day more than one hundred and fifty years ago, a mail coach rode into a village in England. At that time, mail coaches rarely brought letters to the villages. So as soon as the village folks heard the sound of the carriage, they immediately rushed out of houses and fields to stand around the coach.

The postman stepped down from the coach holding up a letter and loudly cried, "Miss Alice Brown, you have a letter!" A girl's light voice replied, "I'm Alice Brown." Everyone's gaze simultaneously went her way.

Alice took the letter the postman handed her, looked at the envelope, and then gave the envelope back to the postman. "Sorry," she said, "I don't have enough money to pay the postage fee."

Everyone sympathized with her, and didn't know what to say. Suddenly, a man of gentlemanly appearance walked out of the crowd, took some cash from his pocket, and said he wanted to pay the postal fee on Alice's behalf, though Alice didn't know him at all.

Wearing a proud smile, she told the gentleman, "Thank you for your kindness, mister, I've looked forward to this letter for a long time, but I have no use for it now."

"Why?" The gentlement thought this was quite strange.

"This letter was sent to me by my boyfriend. I plan to marry him next year. To earn money for the marriage, he went away to look for work. Because I can't pay any postage fees, before he left he told me: if he draws an X written on the envelope, it means he's doing well, if there's a circle on the envelope, it means he's already found work."

"Ah! So actually there's wasn't any letter in the envelope to begin with." The gentlemen mused out loud to himself, "This situation is unfair, [the mail system] must be improved."

He thought about it for a long time, and finally thought of a solution.

He suggested to the then-government: "The postage fee should be paid by the sender of the letter, and it shouldn't be too expensive, otherwise poor people won't be able to afford it. For everyone's convenience, I think people sending letters should use a one-penny stamp and stick it on the front of the letter - that's how they can send it out."

As a result, the English government were willing to follow this good advice and accepted his suggestion. This gentleman's name was Rowland Hill, and this is how the world's first postage stamp was born. 

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