Foot-prints of a letter carrier; or, a history of the world's correspondece

CONTAINING
BIOGRAPHIES, TALES, SKETCHES, INCIDENTS, AND STATISTICS CONNECTED WITH POSTAL HISTORY. BY JAMES REES, CLERK IN THE PHILADELPHIA POST-OFFICE.
“The Post-Office is properly a mercantile project. The government advances the expense of establishing the different offices, and of buying or hiring the necessary horses or carriages, and is repaid with a large profit by the duties upon what is carried.”
Smith, Wealth of Nations .
“A Messenger with Letters.”—Spenser.
PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 1866.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

There are few institutions in this or in any other country the history of which is so little known as is that of the post-office. The very name, in the opinion of the masses, is sufficient to enlighten them; and beyond this little or no interest is manifested. Yet the history, if fairly written, would surprise that very portion who consider the name alone an index to its unwritten pages.
Indeed, it seems strange that so important a branch of our government should have been so slighted by those who constituted themselves historic writers. Our school-books contain no allusion to it, nor are its officers mentioned with any marks of commendation in any of our national works. And yet there are names identified with this department, both as regards mind, intellect, and character, unequalled by those of any other in the country.
Perhaps it is looked upon as being merely an appliance to the wheels of government and not essential to its general movements. Is this so? is the department a mere workshop and its officers and employees simply workers?
We have endeavored in this work—perhaps feebly—to place the “post” before our readers as one of the most important branches of the General Government. We have thrown around its social and political history an interest by connecting with it incidents, facts, and local matter more immediately identified with events which have marked our country’s history from its earliest period to that of the present.