Mailing Children

For many years, the postal delivery service was a need. The Post Office persisted despite the prospect of email destroying it. Who doesn't experience a small rush after receiving a package in the mail? Older generations undoubtedly found the mail service to be more thrilling, and when the Post Office started allowing customers to send packages through the mail, people were really into it. Dangerously, perplexingly into it.

While you might send a buddy a care package now that includes some food and a sweater, back in 1913, people were open to the possibilities. Why not a small person if anything under a particular weight might be sent through the mail?

When a couple from Ohio attempted to mail their 8-month-old baby to his grandma, it made headlines. They gave the postman 15 cents, and it appears that he gave him a ride the few kilometers to grandma's house. Later, because mail was less expensive than a train ticket, a small girl was sent with the mail on a train to visit her grandmother who lived nearly 70 miles away. She at least had a chaperone on the train who was employed by the business, which would have helped that shady operation along a little.

The practice was officially outlawed by the post office, but there is evidence that it persisted in some rural areas where residents were willing to entrust postal workers with the lives of their children. If someone attempted to package their child and hand them to a FedEx driver today, one can only image the Twitter commotion that would ensue.