Sealing-Wax
Under no circumstances use sealing-wax for postal purposes. Wax should only be used for letters or documents when a person is anxious to display his seal or coat of arms, or where it may be required for a legal purpose, and only then when they are more effectually secured.
The practice of sealing letters passing more particularly through warm climates with wax is attended with much inconvenience, and frequently with serious injury, not only to the letters so sealed, but to the other letters in the mail, from the melting of the wax and adhesion of the letters to each other. The public are, therefore, recommended in all such cases to use either wafers or gum, and to advise their correspondents in the countries referred to to do the same.
English newspapers—indeed, nearly all European printed matter—come to us sealed with bad wax; and if many of them were not secured by thread, few would ever reach the parties to whom they are addressed.