Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 June 1887 — Aneient Postal Serviee. [ARTICLE]

Aneient Postal Serviee.

The real origin of letter-writing was in Egypt and the two forms of letters first in use were an-open sheet' and a closed roll. The first step toward portable writing materials lay in the adoption of the papyrus, but for a long time after that mankind seemed little inclined toward an interchange of written thought. During the middle ages no general postal communication was preserved, as letter-writing had quite fallen into disuse. Only the monks still practiced it, and the monasteries and universities became the stations of the'time. In modern tifnes all the appliances of science have been, pressed into the service of expediting the mails. There are still peculiar methods of transit. In British India the velocipede is the vehicle of the carrier; the camel bears the mail through the desert, and the reindeer effects communication among the frozen regions of the North. The ancients had no convenient postal arrangements, a fact easily accounted for by the poverty of their writing materials, as neither the waxen tablets used by pupils under tuition nor the leaden plates upon which the pilgrims wrote questions, when they consulted the oracle of Dodona, were of a suitable shape fortransportation. France first attempted a uniform postal system, which under Louis XV, reached quite a respectable condition. Still, the postage was extravagantly high, and the secresy of a correspondence was so little respected that people did not take the trouble to seal their letters, but merely fastened them together with needles. Richelieu’s maxim was well known and also the coolness with which he acted upon it: “Sire, if one Wishes to know what there is in a letter one must open it and read!” The Persian and Roman empires were the first to attempt systematizing the mail service. Rome probably followed the lead of Persia in the matter, and the origin of the public-post systern is traced back to.the time of Augustus. Between one mansio, or station, and another was a day’s journey, and at each of these points forty mules were at all times kept standing in readiness for travel. The “mutations,” which were between the mansiones, were intended simply for the exchange of horses, and not as shelter for travelers, and here, also, twenty animals were always waiting. L- - ■ Nn Opium in Plan's Cure for Consumption. Cures where other remedies fail. 25c.