conveyance of written communications is one of the most
important objects of civilized society, and without the
consideration of telegraphic dispatch, it is accomplished by
railroad in these days with a celerity and certainty altogether
astonishing. The only written correspondence which took place in
former ages was between princes on matters of state, or the more
powerful nobility, on matters of consequence to themselves, and
the functionaries to whom the responsible duty of its conveyance
was entrusted, were called Nuncios. Edward IV. of England,
during his war with the Scots in 1481, established Posts twenty
miles distant from each other, where relays of horses were
stationed for the transmission of letters from one to another,
which was duly performed at the rate of two hundred miles a day.
From this early arrangement, it would thus appear, arose the
name of the national establishment which has now attained such
universal magnitude. Long after this time the public conveyance
of literary correspondence rem