Stories of Useful Inventions

by S. E. Forman

FIG. 2.—AN EGYPTIAN MAIL CART.

In nearly all the countries of antiquity there was an organized postal system which was under the control of the government and which carried only government messages. In Egypt there were postal chariots (Fig. 2) of wonderful lightness designed especially for carrying the letters of the king at the greatest possible speed. In ancient Judea messengers must have traveled very fast, for Job, in his old age, says: "Now my days are swifter than the post, they flee away." In ancient Persia the postal system awakened the admiration of Herodotus. "Nothing mortal," says this old Greek historian, "travels so fast as these Persian messengers. The entire plan is a Persian invention and this is the method of it. Along the whole line of road there are men stationed with horses, the number of stations being equal to the number of days which the journey takes, allowing a man and a horse to each day, and these men will not be hindered from accomplishing at their best speed the distance they will have to go either by snow, or rain, or heat, or by the darkness of night. The first rider delivers the message to the second and the second to the third, and so it is borne from hand to hand along the whole line."

FIG. 3.—A LETTER CARRIER OF ANCIENT GREECE.

The postal system which Herodotus found in Persia was better than the system which existed in his own country for the reason that the Greeks relied upon human messengers rather than upon horses to carry their messages. Young Greeks were specially trained (Fig. 3) as runners for the postal service and Greek history contains accounts of the marvelous endurance and swiftness of those employed to carry messages. After the defeat of the Persians by the Greeks at Marathon (490 B. C.) a runner carried the news southward and did not pause for rest until he reached Athens when he shouted the word "Victory!" and expired, being overcome by fatigue. Another Greek, Phillipides by name, was despatched from Athens to Sparta to ask the Spartans for aid in the war which the Athenians were carrying on against Persia, and the distance between the two cities—about 140 miles—was accomplished by the runner in less than two days.

FIG. 4.—A LETTER CARRIER OF ANCIENT ROME.

But the best postal system of ancient times was the one which was organized by the Romans. As one country after another was brought under the dominion of Rome it became more and more necessary for the Roman government to keep in close touch with all the parts of the vast empire. Accordingly, by the time of Augustus (14 A.D.), there was established throughout the Roman world a fully organized and well-equipped system of posts. Along the magnificent roads which led out from Rome there were built at regular distances stations, or post-houses, where horses and riders were stationed for the purpose of receiving the messages of the government and hurrying them along to the place of their destination. The stations were only five or six miles apart and each station was provided with a large number of horses and riders. By the frequent changes of horses a letter could be hurried along with considerable speed (Fig. 4). "By the help of the relays," says Gibbon, "it was easy to travel a hundred miles in a day."

When Rome fell (476 A.D.) before the attacks of barbarous tribes her excellent postal system fell with her and many centuries passed before messages could again be regularly and quickly despatched between widely separated points. Charles the Great, the emperor of the Franks, established (800 A.D.) a postal system in his empire but the service did not long survive the great ruler. In the 13th century the merchants of the Hanse towns of Northern Germany could communicate with each other somewhat regularly by letter, but the ordinary people of these towns did not enjoy the privileges of a postal service. In the Middle Ages, as in the ancient times, the public post was established solely for the benefit of the government. Private messages had to be sent as best they could be by private messengers and at private expense. As late as the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547) the only regular post route in England was one which was established for the exclusive use of the king.

But the time was soon to come when ordinary citizens as well as officers of state were to share in the benefits of a postal system. In 1635 Charles I of England gave orders that a post should run night and day between Edinburgh and London and that postmen should take with them all such letters as might be directed to towns on or near the road which connected the two cities. The rate of postage[21] was fixed at two pence for a single letter when the distance was under sixty miles; four pence when the distance was between 60 and 140 miles; six pence for any longer distance in England; and eight pence from London to any place in Scotland. It was ordered that only messengers of the king should be allowed to carry letters for profit unless to places to which the king's post did not go. Here was the beginning of the modern postal system and the modern post-office. Henceforth the post was to carry not only the king's messages, but the messages of all people who would pay the required postage.