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Postal service in the Past

"I have received a letter..." We never think that the letter came to us in many trains, that it flew through the air, over mountains and seas, that it passed through the hands of many people: it is so simple to send letters today that people never remember that it was once a very difficult and special task.

In ancient times 'letters' were brought by the runners - men who could run fast and far - and the 'letters' they carried were not written, because very few people knew how to write. They were delivered orally and told to receiver personally. Postmen in those days had to have a good memory, and they had to be honest. This was especially important: the 'letter' often had important secrets in it, it had to reach only the ears of the receiver and without any change in it. Post runners were met everywhere with respect and honour. Nobody was allowed to stop them or to do anything against them. History has many stories about post runners and descriptions of what they did. One of them, named Phidippides, run 152 miles in two days. He carried the news that the Persians had attacked Athens; the city sent him to Macedonia to ask for help. When he died a monument was put in his memory.

Indian post runners in ancient Peru had postal stations every five kilometres. Four men lived in each station during peace time, eight men in war time. Half of them were on duty during the day, the other half during the night. As soon as the men on duty saw smoke from the nearest station, they made a fire, whose smoke could be seen by the next station. The runner told the letter to the next runner as they ran, without stopping for a minute. In this way, news was carried from one postal station to the next in the shortest possible time.

Post runners in ancient China had postal stations of the same kind: and the runner on duty got ready to start as soon as he heard the little bells tied to the clothes of his comrade running from the nearest station.

Traditions connected with the postal service were different in different countries. In Mexico, for example, after a battle the people knew by the runner's clothes whether the message he was carrying to the capital was good or bad. If he had a white belt on and if his long hair was tied with a red ribbon it meant that the battle had been won; if he came from the battlefield with his hair untied, he carried the news that the battle had been lost.

Post runners sometimes had other duties besides carrying letters. Indian post runners in Mexico, where the postal service was very fast, were sometimes used to send - fish! Sea fish for the king's table. The capital was four hundred kilometres from the sea.

In the great days of Rome, carrier pigeons as letter carriers were well known. When a rich man went to the theatre, he took a carrier pigeon with him. If he wanted to tell his servant at home to do something, he sent the pigeon with a letter tied to his foot. The pigeon was taught to return to its master in the theatre; perhaps he needed it to send another letter home.



The heavy bag of the postman did not appear for a long time, even after postmen began to carry written letters. At first, the letters were tied to a stick, which could be used to fight the dogs that attacked them wherever they went. In China, postmen had to pass a special 'night' examination, to show that they were brave enough not to be frightened by night sounds or animals. Only the bravest and strongest were allowed to carry the postman's bell.

In places in the far north, postmen moved from house to house on skies; and where there were many lakes, which were free of ice in summer, they travelled from place to place in boats. In the part of France called Vendee, a postman had to walk on stilts through the marshes and the high grass; without stilts a postman here was no better than a man without arms.

The postal service grew very slowly in all countries. There were no letter-boxes in Moscow a hundred years ago. When a person wanted to send a letter, he took it to a shop, where he knew that letters were taken for the city post-office. Postmen came to these shops three times a day to take the letters that had been left there. The postmen looked like soldiers: they had black hats and carried swords. If the letter was addressed to a person in another city, it sometimes took weeks to get to the receiver: because the roads were very bad, especially in rainy weather and in spring.

The postal service in Russia improved very slowly. At the beginning of the 20th century there were no letter-boxes and no postmen in country-places. People who lived in such places had to go to the post-office in the nearest town whenever they had a letter to send. Sometimes months passed before these people received the news of important things that had happened in other parts of the country - or even a hundred kilometres away.

The world today has not become smaller, but the postal service, the work of thousands of postal workers, brings the farthest cities and the smallest country places to our doors. You needn't ever move, only pick up the receiver.

The information today can be transmitted in many different ways: by telephone, by telegram, by E-mail, by radio and television, by satellite and so on - and nobody needs to move at all. Pick up the receiver, dial the right number and in a few seconds you can speak to your friend or branch office in New York or Toronto. Business firms often make use of another kind of written communication system called fax or E-mail. Your message is easily transmitted to your customer's machine. He needn't even be in his office at that time; it will be waiting for him when he arrives. Finally, there are the "mass media" - radio, television and the press - which communicate information to a large number of people at the same time. Big broadcasting corporations operate external services in many different languages all over the world. Then there is the press which carries the world news to your house every day.

 


Date: 2015-12-11; view: 1724


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