AN ELECTRIC POSTAL SYSTEM
Far swifter than the movements of air are those of the electric
current, which travels many thousands of miles in a second of time.
Thirty miles an hour is the speed proposed for the pneumatic tube
system mentioned in our last chapter. An Italian, Count Roberto Taeggi
Piscicelli, has elaborated an electric post which, if realised, will
make such a velocity as that seem very slow motion indeed.
Cable railways, for the transmission of minerals, are in very common
use all over the world. At Hong-Kong and elsewhere they do good service
for the transport of human beings. The car or truck is hauled along
a stout steel cable, supported at intervals on strong poles of wood
or metal, by an endless rope wound off and on to a steam-driven drum
at one end of the line, or motion is imparted to it by a motor, which
picks up current as it goes from the cable itself and other wires with
which contact is made.
Count Piscicelli's electric post is an adaptation of the electric
cableway to the needs of parcel and letter distribution.
At present the mail service between towns is entirely dependent on the
railway for considerable distances, and on motors and horsed vehicles
in cases where only a comparatively few miles intervene. London and
Birmingham, to take an instance, are served by seven despatches each
way every twenty-four hours. A letter sent from London in the morning
would, under the most favourable conditions, not bring an answer
the same day--at least, not during business hours. So that urgent
correspondence must be conducted over either the telephone or the
telegraph wires.
Count Piscicelli proposes a network of light cableways--four lines on
a single set of supports--between the great towns of Britain. Each
line--or rather track--consists of four wires, two above and two below,
each pair on the same level. The upper pair form the run-way for the
two main wheels of the carrier; the lower pair are for the trailing
wheels. Three of the wires supply the three-phase current which drives
the carrier; the fourth operates the automatic switches installed
every three or four miles for transforming the high-tension 5,000-volt
current into low-tension 500-volt current in the section just being
entered.
The carriers would be suitable for letters, book-parcels, and light
packages. The speed at which they would move--150 miles per hour to
begin with--would render possible a ten-minute service between, say,
the towns already mentioned. The inventor has hopes of increasing the
speed to 250 m.p.h., a velocity which would appear visionary had we
not already before us the fact that an electric car, weighing many
tons, has already been sent over the Berlin-Zossen Railway at 131-1/2
miles per hour. At any rate, the electric post can reasonably be
expected to outstrip the ordinary express train. "Should such speeds
as Count Piscicelli confidently discusses," says _The World's Work_,
"be attained, they would undoubtedly confer immense benefits upon the
mercantile and agricultural community--upon the agricultural community
because in this system is to be found that avenue of transmission to
big centres of population of the products of _la petite culture_,
in which Mr. Rider Haggard, for example, in his invaluable book on
_Rural England_, sees help for the farmer and for all connected with
the cultivation of the soil. Count Piscicelli proposes to obviate the
delays at despatching and receiving towns by an inter-urban postal
system, in which the principal offices of any city would be connected
with the head-office and with the principal railway termini. From
each of the sub-offices would radiate further lines, along which
post-collecting pillars are erected, and over which lighter motors and
collecting boxes (similar to the despatch boxes) travel. The letter is
put in through a slot and the stamp cancelled by an automatic apparatus
with the name of the district, number of the post, and time of posting.
The letter then falls into a box at the foot of the column. On the
approach of a collecting-box the letter slot would be closed, and
by means of an electric motor the receptacle containing the letters
lifted to the top of the column and its contents deposited in the
collecting-box, which travels alone past other post-collecting poles,
taking from each its toll, and so on to the district office. Here, in
a mercantile centre, a first sorting takes place, local letters being
retained for distribution by postmen, and other boxes carry their
respective loads to the different railway termini, or central office."
Were such an order of things established, there would be a good excuse
for the old country woman who sat watching the telegraph wire for the
passage of a pair of boots she was sending to her son in far away
"Lunnon"!