Coat of mail

“ Betty sprang to her feet.
"Why did you keep my letter?" she demanded hotly. "How did you dare to hold back mail? This must have been in your coat pocket three or four days. It was mailed five days ago!"
"Been rummaging in my coat pocket, have you?" sneered the farmer.
"I have not! The coat was on the floor, and I fell over it. The letter fell out while I was trying to hang it up. No one has a right to hold back another person's mail!"
"Now hold your horses," advised Peabody pacifically. "Who's been holding back mail? ”

“ Thus, with the hardships they have to endure in periods of severe frost, when no heating apparatus is supplied except a few warming-pans, they live a life of duty far removed from ease or soft idleness.
The large pieces of leather with stout straps attached, already referred to, called pouches, are used as a protection to mail-bags which have to be delivered by what is commonly known as the apparatus. The mail-bags to be so disposed of are rolled up inside one of these pouches; the ends of the leather are folded in; the whole is bound round with the strong leather straps ”

“ The plaited or mail shirt of the Early Norman was superseded by a stout, quilted tunic, also called the hauberk, reaching to the knees and with short sleeves, and a coif or hood of mail on the head.
Frequently a metal breastplate or plastron-de-fer, and a steel cap or chapel-de-fer, were worn under the mail. Sometimes over the coif a close-fitting iron helmet was worn. The hauberk sleeves were lengthened, covering the hands as mittens or fingerless gloves of strong leather strengthened by mail or pieces of metal. ”

“ This system, which was suggested by the celebrated Rowland Hill, originated at a period in English postal history when the requirements of trade and commerce demanded a revisal of the code. Perhaps no man was better qualified for the purpose than was Mr. Hill. In 1839 railroad post-offices were in use for mail-bags. Each railway company provided a car, when desired to do so by the postmaster-general, for the exclusive use of the mails. These cars were fitted up with boxes to facilitate the distribution and reception of the mails. ”

“ In the case of a piece of paper folded into something resembling a postcard, unless it complies with the specifications for aerogrammes or letter sheets, it shall be posted as a letter. Article Seven The term "aerogrammes and letter sheets" refers to pieces of paper issued by Chunghwa Post that are folded into envelopes and sealed on all sides for mailing, with postage printed on the cover and a blank space inside for the sender to write messages on. Aerogrammes are used for international airmail and letter sheets are used for domestic mail. ”

“ Some people, indeed, recognising the absurdity of calling a decrepit old man a “postboy,” preferred to give him the title of “mailman,” by which name a postal servant who got drunk and delayed the Bath mail in 1770 is styled in a contemporary newspaper, which says, “The mail did not arrive so soon by several hours as usual on Monday, owing to the mailman getting a little intoxicated on his way between Newbury and Marlborough and falling from his horse into a hedge, where he was found asleep by means of his dog.” ”

“ This is about double the present rate of pamphlet postage in the United States. The delivery of parcels by stage-coaches, railroads, and common carriers, is much more thoroughly systematized in that old country, with its dense population and limited extent, than it can be with us, on our vast territory, so new and so unfinished. Consequently, there is less necessity there for sending pamphlets by mail, and the thing is rarely done except in the case of small pamphlets, of an ounce or two weight, or in cases where despatch in transmission is important. ”

“ Look downstairs. As your mail falls in through that slot, or is brought in by a mailman it is put through an ink-daubing apparatus—that's it, right down in front of you—which totally ruins its stamp. How about your man's photo, now?"
A good laugh rang around, and our official said:—
"Now a man sorts it according to its inscription, puts it into a canvas bag and aboard a train, or possibly an aircraft. But that bag has mail going to points a long way apart, so a man in a mail car sorts it out, so that Chicago won't find mail in its bag which should go to California." ”

“ Banded mail was of so flexible a character that folds are depicted in garments constructed of this material; it was used for hauberks, camails, chausses, sleeves, and, in short, for every purpose in which its predecessor had been used.
8. It is represented in MSS. with a metallic surface. The colour is always silver, white or grey of various shades, and gold. We have therefore to devise a protection which shall be of greater service than chain against arrows; which shall be comparatively cheap; in which leather plays a more or less conspicuous part ”

“ It will be a very pleasant thing to be able to post letters without going off our own doorsteps, but this is only half of the comfort which the new box is going to be to us.
In each post-box will be a special envelope containing blanks, on which the householder can order one and two cent stamps and postal-cards, putting the money to pay for them into the envelope with his order.
The postman collects this envelope with the regular mail, and hands it to a special clerk, who takes out the money, fills the order, and drops the envelope in the mail for the postman to deliver on his next round. ”

“ Fig. 2
This is a fine game for rainy days. Any boy can make it and if he likes to use pencil and paint brush he will find it as interesting to make as to play with. Get a small pasteboard box about six inches long by three wide and an inch deep—such as spools of cotton come in. Cover it with white paper, pasting it neatly and securely. Then draw and colour on the lid a mail bag, which should almost cover it—either a brown leather sack or a white canvas one with "United States Mail" on it in large blue letters. ”

“ Mail shirts, sleeves, etc., of later date than the fourteenth century are far from uncommon, and are represented in every collection. By the kindness of Sir Noël Paton a most perfect fourteenth century specimen is illustrated. It is close fitting, and was exhibited in 1880, and described by Burgess as “one of the few coats of mail which [Pg 20] have any decided history.” In Meyrick’s Critical Enquiry we are told that “it had been purchased by a Jew from an ancient family at Sinigaglia, near Bologna, in whose possession it had been beyond any of their records.” ”

“ Although the figure is somewhat disproportionate, and the partial covering up of the lower parts of the legs by the surcoat is unfortunate, yet as a work of art, and especially as an example of technique and patience on the part of the engraver, it is unrivalled. Every separate link of the mail is faithfully represented. The reinforcement of the chain mail by secondary defences is here exemplified in its primitive stage, a pair of genouillières [Pg 98] only appearing, which from their ornamental appearance are presumably of cuir-bouilli, or of plate covered with cuir-bouilli. ”

“ If you cannot get a post-chaise, take off one of the coach-horses, and ride with your bags to the next stage; there take another horse,—and so on till you come to the end of your ground, when you must deliver the bags to the next guard, who must proceed in the same manner. If your mail is so large (as the York, Manchester, and two or three others are at some part of the road) that one horse cannot carry it, you may take two; tie the mail on one horse and ride the other. The person who horses the mail must order his horsekeeper at every stage to furnish you with horses in case of accidents. ”

“ White, with several others in a party of California emigrants near Santa Fé, the Indians, emboldened by success, seemed to feel that they had the power and did [Pg 194] not lack the will to drive all white travelers from the plains. Our "model mail contractor," in addition to the heavy responsibility of conveying from fifteen hundred weight to a ton and a half of the United States mails, often had intrusted to his care, coin and gold dust in considerable quantities, and the lives and effects of numerous passengers. ”

“ First you wrap a layer or two of blanket around your body, for a sort of cushion and to keep off the cold iron; then you put on your sleeves and shirt of chain mail—these are made of small steel links woven together, and they form a fabric so flexible that if you toss your shirt onto the floor, it slumps into a pile like a peck of wet fish-net; it is very heavy and is nearly the uncomfortablest material in the world for a night shirt, yet plenty used it for that—tax collectors, and reformers, and one-horse kings with a defective title, and those sorts of people ”

“ Packages began to arrive with insufficient postage, and the crippled girl's pocket money vanished with alarming rapidity. The letter carrier always delivered the daily budget of mail to the little maid under the trees when the weather permitted of her being at her post, and it chanced that for a fortnight after the answers to her endless chain began pouring in, she received her own mail, so no one but Allee knew her secret, and there was no one but Allee to help her out with her heavy postage bills. ”

“ No dweller in lands where the double knock of the postman comes many times in the day can know the thrill of the weekly mail, discharged from the steamship in Capetown and heralded in its progress up the line by telegrams that announce to the little dorps along the railway the hour of its coming. They have not waited with a patient, preoccupied throng in the lobby of the post-office where the numbered boxes are, and heard beyond the wooden partition the slam of the bags and the shuffle of the sorters, talking at their work about things remote from the mail. ”

“ Scissors, knives, razors, forks, steel pens, nails, keys, watch machinery, metal tubing, pieces of metal or ore, and such like, as samples, may be sent, provided they be packed in so secure a manner as to afford complete protection to the contents of the mail bags and the officers of the Post Office, while at the same time they may be easily examined. Any packet containing such articles as these, which is found not sufficiently guarded will be stopped, and notice given thereof, but it will be charged with a fine equal to the postage to which it was liable as a packet of patterns. ”

“ One of our subscribers wrote us upon the subject of cutting dresses by our patterns. We have mislaid the letter. Will she please write again?
"Miss T."—Sent cotton by mail. The postage will be expensive; but cheaper than express.
"A. S. C."—Sent dress on the 7th by mail.
"Miss D. H."—Sent patterns by mail on 7th.
"Helen."—Boots to button at the side for winter wear are very fashionable here. Bronze or blue gaiter boots $3, French kid slippers $1 50. Never heard of such a mono-mania; make him wear girl's clothing until he reforms. ”

“ Up to that instant it is but a common card, which anybody can pick up and carry off without committing a criminal act. But as soon as it is in back of this partition, or in a mail box, a magical transformation occurs; and anybody who now should willfully purloin it, or obstruct its trip in any way, will find prison doors awaiting him. What a frail thing ordinary mail is! A baby could rip it apart, but no adult is so foolish as to do it. That small stamp which you stick on it, is, you might say, a postal official, going right along with it, having it always in his sight. ”

“ Outside the Post-office department it is probably not apprehended to what extent care is actually bestowed upon letters and packets—when, in course of transit through the post, their covers are damaged or addresses mutilated—in order to secure their further safe transmission; many envelopes and wrappers being of such flimsy material that, coming into contact with hard bundles of letters in the mail-bags, they run great risk of being thus injured. ”

“ It is believed that many abuses [222] of the franking system could be prevented, and consequently a marked economy effected, by supplying through the agencies of the postal service special official envelopes and stamps for the free mail of the government, all such envelopes and stamps to be issued on requisition to the various branches of the federal service requiring them, and such records to be kept of official stamp supplies as will enable the Post office Department to maintain a proper postage account covering the entire volume of free government mail. ”

“ Small closed mails are at times enclosed inside of closed mails for other offices; for instance, the mails made up at Paris for Guatemala are in a sack duly sealed and labelled as aforesaid, but this sack is put inside of one of the bags for the New York office, and in such cases the fact is noted on the letter bill sent with the New York mail. ”

“ An arrow or dagger point could easily spread open a link, and penetrate to the wearer’s body. So all good chain mail was strengthened by having the ends of every link overlapped, slightly flattened, and then riveted. In that part of the world we now call “Middle East”—where the 6 Mohammedan and Hindu cultures flourished—the rivet was a separate piece of fine wire. European chain mail is more of a mystery—principally because there is so very little old European chain mail still in existence. ”

“ When several threads are put to the mail, it is also usual to put several picks to each card. The fewer picks, the finer will be the pattern; but a good method of regulating this is to make the checks formed on the cloth square, a little more or less according to the fineness of the pattern required. Thus, if the cloth is wefted square, or a little over that—say, 100 warp by 100 to 110 weft threads per inch—paint the design on, say, 8 × 8 or 8 × 9 paper, and give as many shots [176] to the cards as there are threads in the mail. ”