New Britain herald., 1926-12-22

hardy men who SUCK to the 1oD 50 consistently until every whit of mall is handled promptly and on time.
 All great modern convenience, postal facilities In the olden days nothing of the sort was known but wait! Maybe this is wrong.
 Readers of the Old Testament will find somethingH having to do with postal service in the eighth chapter of the Book of Esther, to wit:
 And he wrote in the King Ahasuerus' name, and sealed it with the Kings ring, and sent letters by posts on horseback, and riders on mules, camels and young drome- daries"
 The postal business. therefore, dates from some time back. But even more is known about it's beginnings than is given in the Old Testament.
 It's very name is taken from the early Roman system of carrying mail by relays, the changes being made at certain points which were called "posts" along the way. It Is believed these were actual posts set o1N ho li ic1, hn change in relaying swift animals of burden. Anyway, the speedy mail carriers rode an animal from post to post, then changed and continued post haste"
 The system was developed all over the Roman empire, and was in vogue In England as well as Egypt. Communications could be sent from Scotland to the far east-anywhere where the Roman legions held sway, had built their fine roads, and brought civilizations ameliorating process.
 Ancient Persia six centuries before Christ, also had an extensive postal system, which not only transported letters-such as they were in those days-but also parcels. Thus the modern parcel post cannot be said to be a new thing, by any means. Packages were transported relative ly swiftly and safely in the old Per sian empire, and the records are quite extensive that the service" was highly appreciated by the mer- chants in that extensive kingdom.
 Even some of the love letters which have been preserved and un- earthed. and which were addressed to sweethearts hundreds of miles away, requiring days of travel, do not differ much from the kind of love missive written today. But they were not written on paper-if they had no modern eyes would ever mad been able to see them.
 The development of the post tran sit in the American colonies was slow and faced with hardships due to the new country and the bad roads. At first letters were trans ported from the inns by the ear Hest available carriers, and 1t was not public function. But as some folk in the inns were inclined to open letters and read them for the sake of gossir, laws had to be passed in some of the colonies mak- ing this penal offense. Gradually the colonies themselves took over the transportation of mail, and stage coaches made regular trips. One of the main arteries of their travel was the Boston Post road between New York and Boston; the other important one reached from New York to Washington. It took weeks to get the letters over the route. and letters to the far west'-as far west as Pittsburgh-took even longer. Prices were much higher than today and nobody wrote let ters except when absolutely neces- sary. Those were the days when Christmas greetings really had to be mailed early"-sometime in No- vember.
 Today every post office In the country seems to be perpetually overloaded with mail. So many are needed that the government has been unable to supply the demand and in many cities additional quar- ters are being rented rather than built. Writing letter is nothing important to most of us--even some or the letters are not very i'm portant, 1t seems. Even kids are writing letters to Santa Claus-al- though they also did this in 1860.
 0S Gf 0V