I just came across a great New York Times piece on the mail service in the Victorian era. It's full of trivia: for example, did you know that in 1889 London, mail was delivered TWELVE TIMES A DAY? Read this:
In Victorian London, though service wasn't
Yeah, it’s kind of weird that this is one of the things the US got right compared to most other countries. If you’re already sending a guy to every house in town, why not pick up their mail while you’re at it.
But you need to wrap the letter or parcel and pay for postage anyway, so unless you’re regularly sending things it’s still easier just to go to a post office.
And that means the postie has to check every single house even if they don’t have any mail which slows things down a lot.
Yeah, it’s kind of weird that this is one of the things the US got right compared to most other countries. If you’re already sending a guy to every house in town, why not pick up their mail while you’re at it.
But you need to wrap the letter or parcel and pay for postage anyway, so unless you’re regularly sending things it’s still easier just to go to a post office.
And that means the postie has to check every single house even if they don’t have any mail which slows things down a lot.