quite time some effective steps were taken to stop the use of postage stamps as currency. They never were fit for such a purpose, though in the absolute dearth of small change they have been of some service to the business community. But currency, to answer any good end, must have some essential value. It must either be of intrinsic worth, like metal coins, or represent somebody's credit, -- that of the Government, of a corporation, or of private individuals. The only intrinsic value of these stamps consisted in the fact that they might be used to pay postage. When people took them, they thought that they could convert them into this use at least, and that so long as letters had to go by mail they would have some value, and might therefore be safely regarded as currency.

The Government has now stepped in to destroy this. The Post-office Department, in a circular which we published yesterday, has issued instructions to Postmasters "to treat as unpaid any letter placed in a Post-office for mailing which may be covered by a stamp at all soiled or defaced, or which has apparently been used in payment of postage." It is impossible to circulate these stamps without "soiling or defacing" them more or less; and the very fact of circulating them is thus to render them worthless. The Government, it seems to us, is perpetrating a very gross wrong upon the people, in thus repudiating its own stamps, for which it has received payment in full, on the mere pretext that they have been soiled. It is its duty to destroy the stamps after they have been used, or so to mark them as to render it impossible to use them again.

But there is no safety to anybody in taking these stamps any longer as money. They have not the slightest intrinsic value. They are not a legal tender. They will not be redeemed by anybody. They will not even pay postage. The public might just as well make wooden buttons or pebble stones a substitute for change as these stamps. They would have just as much value, and would answer precisely the same purpose, so long as the community chose to take them. But somebody must eventually lose very largely on these postage stamps, -- and the sooner their circulation is stopped the smaller the loss will be.

The rebel Congress has passed a law, authorizing the issue of five millions of dollars in copper coins, of the denominations of five, ten and twenty-five cents. We ought to have had a similar issue -- not of copper, but of silver, so far alloyed as to prevent its being sold at a premium or withheld from ,circulation. Such a currency would be far more convenient and creditable than the paper shinplasters, which are to be issued, and infinitely more so than the sticky and worthless nuisances which have hitherto taken their place.