Have you ever stopped and really thought about the fantastic task of moving the mails? Or considered the weary mailman plodding along through all kinds of weather? Well, perhaps, having lived through the postal strike here in America, you are somewhat more aware of these citizens who are responsible for getting our mail to us. I’m sure that the people in England are even more aware of their dependence on the mails, since their strike lasted much longer than ours.

We all know jokes based on the mailman’s pledge - that nothing in the direst circumstances shall "... stay the courier from the swift completion of his appointed round."

So - what’s a courier? A mailman! Right on! But - with all due respect to our many friends associated with the postal services - a very special mailman. These were the special messengers used by kings and princes for official business. If purely private correspondence was being sent, it was more generally delivered by friends or merchants going from place to place.

Now, obviously, it was a very fine thing to be entrusted with official letters by a king or an extremely wealthy person, and the pay was proportionately good. These couriers generally enjoyed a very high standard of living.

Of course, there were also very obvious risks involved. For instance: today, if we want to be sure that a letter has been delivered to the right person, we send it by registered mail. When we get back a signed receipt, we know that the letter has reached its proper destination. The only way that the ancients had to ensure such safety was to seal the tablets, so that the courier must present them with the seal unbroken - or else pay highly, most likely with his life!

And that brings up another point - these letters were written on clay tablets. Not the most stable of materials for transmitting secret messages perhaps. And certainly the risk of damage must have been great.

But - the mail did go through, as it has continued to do down through the history of man, whether carried in a modern car, or on a camel’s back; whether flown through the air, or carried on foot over weary miles. We salute all the guardians of the mails - past, present, and future. Who knows how couriers will function in times to come! We only know that the letters sent by courier, inscribed on tablets, and buried and lost for many long centuries, have come to light in many places, and given us insights into the past that we might never have had without them. Perhaps, someday, the letters that we send today will give the men of the future an idea of what our civilization was like.