The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1923-02-02
HISTORYLOF The
LETTER TRACED
POSTMASTER GENERAL TELLS IN
TERESTING ST0RY-FIGURES
SHOW STAGGERING GROWTH.

Washington-(A. P.)-From the
use of the dromedary in biblical times
to the swiftly flying mail aeroplane
of today, the history of the letter, as
a written means of communication be-
tween peoples, was traced by Assist
ant Postmaster General w. Irving
Glover in a speech recently to post
masters and postal employees in
postal conference convention at Win
ston-Salem, N. G.
"On the post office job,' he said,
nothing can take the place of the
individual. While in many great in
dustries the human equation has
been reduced to a minimum, no one
has yet invented anything to take the
place of man in the delivery of
letters. Today, as a hundred years
ago, we are dependent on the nerve
and the sense of loyalty of human
being for the punctual delivery of
our mail regardless of the weather
and everything else
The history Of the postal service
goes back as far as the sixth CEN
tury, B. c., and may be called the
hand maid of civilization and, tracing
it from the dispatch bearer of the
Assyrian and Roman times 70 the air.
plane service of the present day, the
postal business has doubled in the
last decade while the number of en-
ployees has increased only nine per
cent.
THE use of postage stamps is now
so common and the mailing of letters
so general that it seems as if there
never was a time when this practice
was unknown. But the stamp itself
is comparatively new, while the send
ing of letters is older than Solomon.
1.-The Book of Esther in the Bible
tells of how King Ahasuerus, learning
from Queen Esther that Haman had
ordered the death of all the Jews,
commanded Mordesai to call together
the scribes and send letters to every
province of the kingdom forbidding
the massacre. This is the verse that
describes the sending of the messen-
gers:
And he wrote in King Ahasuerus'
name, and sealed it with the kings
seal; and sent letters by posts on
and riders on mules, camels
and young dromedaries."
The Romans, too, sent their let
ters by mounted couriers. The courier
carried the message about twenty
miles when he would come to 'posta'
where another messenger was sta
toned with fresh horse. He, in
turn, would be relieved by still an
other courier. Thus relay after re-
lay the letter was sped on until at
last it arrived at it's destined posta,'
station or stopping place, and
from that word we obtain the word
post as found in post office, post
card and many similar words.
g In the times of Benjamin Frank
lin, each letter was charged for by
he sheet instead of by weight, and
also for the distance it was carried.
Ten cents was charged fo4 one sheet,
20 cents for two sheets. and so on,
and for every fifty miles another full
Zee was added Envelopes were not
Ised in those days, the letter simply
)eing folded up and sealed.
And now we come to the stagger-
ng figures showing the growth of
his great business. In every single
lour of the "a there are mailed 1,400,-
100 letters, and in every day of the
65 of the year, 33,600,000 letters slip
nto the box. To carry this great vol
lme of letters, there was sold four
cen billion postage stamps, 81 mil
ion special delivery stamps, 38 mil
ion newspaper wrappers, 62 million
postage due stamps used on short paid
nail matter and billion postal cards
printed and sold, and, all counted, we
lsed and sold 1S billion units during
he last fiscal year And, again, to
AIRY this vast quantity of mail we
operate a very large motor truck
service, having in operation today
,433 motor vehicles, and then in the
arrying of this volume of mail by
abroad it requires 21,000 railway
nail clerks who cover 215,000 miles
ally"