Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-06-23
The Mails During the Last Century.

The Mails During the Last Century.
The newspapers and the inventions
for transmitting mails and intelligence
have worked o marvellous change,
among other things, in letter-writing. (
Few men have now time O. inclination
to carry on correspondence with their
friends in distant cities, and when they
do write their letters treat of some mat
ter which is disposed of in the fewest
possible words. Then it was different,
and the men who had fought together
at the Brandywine, who had stood
shoulder to shoulder at Trenton and
Germantown, and had shared each
others rags at Valley Forge, took
pleasure in communicating with each
other as often as possible. Their let
tiers contained many items which now
are found in the papers under the head
OF general news The prices of vari-
Gus articles of use, the cost of living,
the last election, the current opinions
OF the day, were all found in letters
simply because they could be gathered
from no other source. Practically there
was no such thing as mail. Less than
two hundred years ago q patent was
issued creating the office of Postmaster
for the colonies of America, but nothing
came of it because there were not
enough letters mailed to Justify the es-
tablishment of a service. About 1920 a
line of riders extended from Philadel-
PIMA to several points in Virginia, but
the service was extremely irregular be-
cause the post rider was never sent
out with a mail until enough letters
had been gathered to pay the expense
OF the trip, and no one could therefore
tell when his missive would be for
warded. The speed was usually about
thirty miles a day, and when, at the
first of this century, the rider, by
changing horses, made one hundred
miles in the twenty-four hours, the
achievement was considered unpar-
allcled. More mails are now received
in a single day in New York than
were then in six months; and more
letters there in one day than then in
the whole country during q year. The
mail then between New York and Bos-
ton was carried in a single pair of sad
dle-bags, and when the quantity in
creased so that two pairs had to be used
the carriers demonstrated so loudly
that the matter became of considerable
consequence.
10 receive q letter then was a great
event in a neighborhood, since years
sometimes passed without a letter being
brought to a country town, and when
one came, it was a signal for all the
neighbors TO come in and hear it read.
Letters often took six weeks to go from
Philadelphia to the country towns of
| Massachusetts op6 I,ripor +bic f;r,o klo
carriers had abundance of leisure to
read them and get their contents by
heart, an opportunity they were not
slow to use. There was no law forbid
ding them to do this, and as they en-
joyed telling the news they bore, and
the people liked to listen to them, this
arrangement was very satisfactory. This
practice, so abominable to those who
correspondent, continued for many years
until the number of letters and greater
expedition in their carriage prevented
the carriers from reading them. For
this reason the majority Of the public
men correspondent in cipher Of some
kind or other, a habit which has been
mistaken for evidence of craft, when, in
fact, it was merely o desire to render
correspondence private. Bad as the
system Of postal service was, it was so
superior to the facilities for travelling
that few were disposed to complain. In
those days the man who, for any pur-
pose, attempted to start on a journey
from Virginia to Massachusetts, called
his friends together, gave them a fare
well dinner, made his will, had prayer
for his safety offered up in the church,
and made his general arrangements as
a man now would if intending to go to
India or Africa for a term of years. In
Washington's time two stages carried
all the travel between New York and
Boston. posting eighteen hours of each
day and reaching their destination in
only six days. When the stage stuck in
the mud all the passengers turned out, as
they do now out of a street car, got rails
and helped the driver. When New York
was in sight, the wretched passengers
were sometimes compelled to wait for
ten days, if there CHANGED to be a wind,
before they could cross the river, and
not infrequently, when ice was running,
a f%erry-boat would be crushed in the
foes and the passengers forced to
Chamber out on the cakes, where they
would float for hours at the imminent
danger Of being carried out to sea-
Cor. st. Louis e-Denocrat.