Snail Mail Tech

Paul03244 writes "I found a fascinating Smithsonian Institute page about snail mail technology, part of the SI's National Postal Museum. Great stuff; everything from 'perforating paddles' used during the process of fumigating mail during the Yellow Fever epidemic of the 1880s; to a number of items used in Rural Mail Delivery. A great page to make us realize that even a dialup Internet connection is a great improvement over what our forebears were accustomed to just a generation or two ago."

Comments

Re:Disk Swap by snailmail.

[SharpFang]

Bob opens it, non-destructively, then sends it back with new contents marked "return to sender, address unknown".
Alice receives info that the letter was returned. She goes to the post office and to get her letter back, she must pay cost of sending it from Bob to Alice.

Besides, she would have to send it as registered letter. Only registered letters can be returned to sender in that manner. Normal misadressed leters get discarded.

At least that's how it works here.

Re:Disk Swap by snailmail.

[riffer]

The context was in that of the US Postal System (Hint: The article is about US Postal history).

In the USPS, if a letter is mis-addressed but has a correct return address it will be returned to the sender at no cost, delivered right to their mailbox.