Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 185, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1912 — EVER SEE A STOUT POSTMAN? [ARTICLE]

EVER SEE A STOUT POSTMAN?

In London, for Instance, Carriers Walk Over Sixteen Miles Carrying Forty Pounds. Has it ever struck you why a stout postman is such a rarity? The question is worth attention. A postman who in a busy London residential district walks from four teen to sixteen miles a day, starts out In the morning with mails weighing something like eighty pounds. x As his letters and packages are distributed, the weight of his bag, of course, grows less, so that the average weight he carries during his trip is forty pounds. A pint of water weighs a pound. A 10-quart pail weighs about twenty pounds, and the average weight the postman carries is equal to two of these. If you want to know why postmen are thin, try a 15-mile walk with a 10-quart pail of water in each hand. The driver of a brewery wagon, on the other hand, is usually fat. The reason is that he sits on the seat of his fray most of the day, and often consumes large quantities of liquid. Policemen, too, often grow fat through standing about on their beats. —Answers, London.