The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1907-11-07
TRANSPORTING MAILS
BEFORE THE REVOLUTION
Some Features Of a Crude Institution
From Which Has Been EVOLVED The
Modern POstai System.

Modern Post6i System.
A certain amor 1t of imagination is
required of him who would picture ac-
curately in his minds eye the postal
service of Ma. yland in Colonial and
early national days. Bald statistics of
themselves can mean little to the aver
age reader, for instantly he will begin
to use them comparatively with data of
modern times, and the early postal sys-
TEN must be s. en- all by itself isolated,
as it were-'f it is to be seen in an in
forming hit.
Filst Of all it must be borne in mind
that the several competitors of COM
munication by mail were then undream-
ed of or, at best, in their infant days.
The newspaper, Which today does so
much to keep man in touch with the
more important events in the lives of
his acquaintance, was then thing of
little news and much pendanticism.
The editors were on a par, so far as
their views of journalism were concern
ed, with many college professor of
our own day, and treir news columns
frequently harbor d, 'ns-e5d of news.
lengthy excerpts from the Latin and
other masters This state of affairs
was due not so much to the fact that
the center of publication was, like
Mother Hubba is cupboard bare Of
material, but because the publisher
lacked that inventive ,Jll CT mind
which characterizes the modern news
paper mr1.
The newspaper then was not the
means of keeping a / Ter in close
touch with his friends at home or
abroad. IRE t~'efhcne and the tele-
graph-two other competitors of the
model mail sci Jice-were still nothing
more than visionary ideas in the heads
of little chez abs who had not yet been
sent from heaven. to inhabit the earth,
while it is doubtful if the wireless tele-
graph had even been thor2ht Of so
much vaguely .oy any cherUb
And thus it was that the mail was
mighty big factor in the lives Of those
colonists who would keep in touch with
men living in other sections of the coun-
try CT abroad
Finally the fact must not be lost sight
of that there were even greater reasons
in Colonial days for residents of Mary
land 20 communicate with those living
far from the province Of the Calverts
than there is in the present day. Many
on earlYZ.settler Of Maryland had been
toln from his home that he might peo-
pie a new land in which the promise of
success in money-making or the freedom
of thoy~ht I'd action or an abundance
of prospective adventure were magnets
of attraction
This n = might carry with him his
family or he might leave his closest
relatives in the old land; but his isola-
ton in sparsely populated country,
whether alone or with few kinsmen,
would almost certainly make him feel
the need of maintaining a means of
communication with them.
Then. tc }, his business transactions
as rule would almost certainly make
it necessary for him to keep in touch
with the merchants of Europe, whether
he appear ] m the rcle of buyer or
seller, ard in az Of these thirgs he
found that he had to put great Deepen
dence upon the agency of letters But
what was the nature of that agency.
The postoffice is only partly modern
creation. In the days of Rome's great
est prosperity, for example, there were
established along the chief roads or
highways posts where stationed cour-
iers, and by the means of a chain of
such stations both news and dispatches
were sent over the country This was
also true in later days in some Of the
Oriental countries. But in most, if not
all, of these instances the service was
maintained by the Government for
governmental business.
In the mother country of the Ameri-
can colonies a system of postal service,
even approaching in primeval crudeness
that Of the Romans, was not establish
ed until the closing quarter of the
/ fifteenth century. 1t was at this time