These postmarks are informational straight-line hand-stamps indicating that a letter was posted too late to be included in the day's dispatch. There is no evidence that a late fee was charged and the covers (rare) that have been seen are mostly franked at the normal rate. It has been asserted that the hand-stamps were struck on the stamps before the normal cancellation was applied; however, they were struck both on the stamps and on the envelopes. The early ones were in Italian, "Dopo la Partenza", but were replaced by French, "Aprés Depart", in the 1880s. There seems to have been extensive forgery