EARLY POSTAL SERVICES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 66, 19 March 1910, Page 10

EARLY POSTAL SERVICES.

One of the most Mite resting features of the forthcoming Anglo-Japanese Exhibition, which ia to be held at the White City, London, in the course of the present year, and will be visited, if not actually opened, bj the King and Queen, will be the contribution made by the Department of Communications at Tokio, corresponding to our General Post Office. These exhibits, which are being sent specially over from the Japanese capital, will (says the Daily Telegraph) bo illustrative of the different methods which have been adopted in carrying the RoYal mails in various periodc in the history of the Empire. As far back as the seventh century a postal system carao into existence for the first time. Along the principal highways stations were established, relay horses and post Horses being kept for this particular object, and a number of bells and checks brought into use for the purpose of identifying the official couriers. In England it v interesting to note the first mention of a postmaster oecure in the reign of King Henry VIII., and during that of Queen Elizabeth an organised service for the despatch of letters to and from this country was established in London by the Society of Foreign Meichants, who appointed their own postmaster. In 1568 the Government established a State Poet Office for foreign letters, and James I. appointed Lord Stanhope master of the messengers and runners in 1607, and latej on a Postmaster of England for Foreign Parts, who was probably the earliest known predecessor of the present occupant of the office.