Topic : Mail
The Envelope
Back in 1820 the average person in England wrote only three letters a year. And with good reason. Letters in those days were mailed without a cover and could be read by anyone.
But William Mulready had an idea to ensure privacy—the envelope. On a visit to France Mulready noticed that messages from an important person often were completely enclosed in “a little paper case...impervious to the peering eyes of the curious.”
The idea of sending letters shielded from curious eyes was an instant success. The volume of letters handled by the British postal service soared beyond anyone’s expectations.
Today, there are billions of Mulready’s “little paper” envelopes safely traveling around the world.”
Missionaries’ Mail
Early missionaries to the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific received their mail once a year when the sailing boat made its rounds of the South Pacific. On one occasion the boat was one day ahead of schedule, and the missionaries were off on a neighboring island. The captain left the mail with the Marshallese people while he attended to matters of getting stores of water and provisions. At last the Marshallese were in possession of what the missionaries spoke about so often and apparently cherished so much. The people examined the mail to find out what was so attractive about it. They concluded that it must be good to eat, and so they proceeded to tear all the letters into tiny bits and cook them. However, they didn’t taste very good, and the Marshallese were still puzzled about the missionaries’ strange interest in mail when they returned to find their year’s correspondence made into mush.
