The mirror., 1923-02-08

is authority tor the statement that the
Chinese at one time had 100000 horses in
use between posts, and similar posts were
set up in Persia by Cyrus, and in Italy by
Augustus.
Though it took days, weeks and some
times months for letter to reach desig-
mated place. this system was at one time
the last word in efficiency.
Through nearly the entire history of
mankind, communication depended almost
wholly on transportation. Men, animals
and ships did the carrying, until the loco
motive was invented and railways came
into being.
In pioneering trip in 1921, Spaniard
took oxen and carts from Spain to Vera
Cruz in Mexico. They were used in a
journey from Vera Cruz to Pueblo. AS an
indication of appreciation of this step in
transportation, so important a factor in
sending messages, the man was sainted by
the Pope.
The news of Napoleon's death was six
teen months in reaching this country. A
paper of Albany, N. Y, announced in its
issue of September 8, 1921, that official
word had just been received of the death
CT Napoleon on May 6, 1920.
Written messages, public and private,
came into wider use from the 10Th century
onward, and were conveyed by messengers.
The unlettered state of the masses made
intimate private communication generally
impossible 1t was the exceptional person
who could read or write. Nearly all men
and women who had long distance mes
sages to convey had to go to their spiritual
advisors, or to the city apothecary, or to
chance individual who had mastered his
letters and was equipped to render the
service of writing. Recipients of letters
could not usually read, and again recourse
was had to the few who could.
These proceedings left little privacy in
letters; in fact, none, if the lettered per-
sons were gossips.
This primitive plan, together with the
slow and costly delivery in Europe from
1855 to about 1884, was the forerunner of
the great postal systems of today.
In 1880 mail matter was sent by railway,
the first going from Liverpool to Manches
ter, England.
Railways were the fastest carriers of
mail matter until aeroplanes came into
practical use during the war. Only in
limited way do aeroplanes carry mail, but
this agency may be extended. In 1919 an
aeroplane carried mail across the Atlantic
Ocean.
1t should be emphasized that printing
made practicable so years before Column
bus discovered America, greatly stimulated
communication and made its field broader.
For several centuries printing was slow in
reaching the public, but, as education
spread, the demand for reading matter
increased, and this reading matter became
III turn means of education.
Now in the leading nations printing has
and ideas are thus given wide circulation.
Large masses of people can be brought
into communication through newspapers
magazines, pamphlets, and books.
When written and printed messages
could be sent by railway and steamship,
people thought the world had made won
derful progress; and it had, but inventions
ruore wonderful were coming.
The next important step was invention
of the telegraph.
A scmaphore or aerial telegraph, sys-
ten of visible signalling, was the work of
Chappe, of France, in 1871. 1t proved its
usefulness for communication when France
seethed and burned and guillotined in the
throes of the horrible revolution of 1893.
Night semaphores came to be used on land
and sea.
Mans evergrowing need to get more