THE GENESIS OF THE POST
The earliest letter carriers—The Roman posita—Princely Postmasters of Thurn and Taxis—Sir Brian Tuke—Hobson of "Hobson's Choice"—The General Letter Office of England—Dockwra's Penny Post of 1680—Povey's "Halfpenny Carriage"—The Edinburgh and other Penny Posts—Postal Rates before 1840—Uniform Penny Postage—The Postage Stamp regarded as the royal diplomata—The growth of the postal business.
Postage is so cheap and so easy to-day that we are apt to forget how, not very many years ago, it was a privilege of the rich. To-day the Post Office is no respecter of persons, and the "all swallowing orifice of the pillar-box" receives without favour or distinction the correspondence of the humble with the messages of the mighty. The Post Office treats everything confided to its charge with the same organised routine. In the palatial new edifice, King Edward the Seventh Building, a few days before Christmas, a letter was handed to me for inspection in the "Blind Division," where they deal with insufficiently addressed letters. The missive bore in the handwriting of a little child, "To Santa Claus, No. 1, Aerial Building, London." That letter, I was informed, had to be passed through the Blind Division, thence to the Returned Letter Office, where it would be opened to discover if the enclosure contained any indication of the identity and whereabouts of the writer. If not returnable, the letter would be preserved for a period lest it should be claimed. The Department is as careful of the precocious petitions of a child as it is of the papers of State which it carries throughout the length and breadth of the land.
By all who would know the true love of stamps it must needs be understood how postal matters were before the birth of the Penny Black. Else we shall not fitly appreciate all the benefices that the "label with the glutinous wash" has brought to our present civilisation. Without this comparison of the old order with the new, we should be in peril of passing over the true significance of the postage-stamp in the surfeit of blessings it confers upon the world to-day. Postage to-day is as fecund of bounties as a fruitful garden, yet do we accept all as our rightful heritage, without giving much consideration to the little postage-stamp which was the seed which, planted in every civilised country of the earth, has yielded blessings in abundance.
So in our first chat, we would open up the book in which is told the history of things that are written from one to another. The first letter of which we have any particular knowledge was that by which David achieved his evil purpose of sending Uriah the Hittite to the forefront of the battle, that he might be smitten and die. The unfortunate Uriah was himself the messenger, bearing the fatal letter to Joab with his own hand. The brazen-faced Jezebel forged her royal husband's name to letters, so our first meeting with letters in scriptural history shows that they could be used to evil as well as to good purpose.
As the Scythians made contracts one with another by mingling the warm blood of their bodies in a cup and drinking thereof, so the Persians used living letters in their early correspondence. Herodotus tells us how they shaved the heads of their messengers and impressed or branded the "writing" upon their scalps. Then they were shut up until the hair had grown again and concealed the message, when the runners were sent off upon their divers journeys. A messenger on reaching his destination was again shaved and the epistle was made plain to the eyes of the beholder.
This was a primitive method, one of many which had vogue amongst the ancients. Under Darius I. the Persians had a service of Government couriers, for whom were provided horses ready saddled at specified distances on their route, so that the Government could send and receive communications with the provinces. "Nothing in the world is borne so swiftly as messages by the Persian couriers," says Herodotus.
The word "post" descends to us from the Roman posita (positus = placed), and is a link between our posts of to-day and the cursus publicus of the time of Augustus. In those days of arms the roads were laid for armies to traverse, not for traffic, and the organisation of the posita was military. Stations were established at intervals on the chief routes, where couriers and magistrates could be furnished with changes of horses (mutationes.) For the benefit of the travellers mansiones or night quarters were erected. These State posts were only for the use of the Government, and they were ridden by couriers who had, besides their own mount, a spare horse for carrying the letters. Individuals were at times permitted to use the posts, for which privilege they had to have the permits or diplomata of the Emperor. The Romans also had what may be compared with sea-posts, from Ostia and other ports.
Foot-runners and messengers on horseback have been organised for Government communications in most lands where civilisation has dawned, even in remote times. In the West the Incas and the Aztecs had runners from earliest times, and in the Orient carrier-pigeons provided an additional means of communication.