Article November 11, 2013 ISSUE

A new way to read The Christian Science Monitor Weekly

John Yemma

Here’s a trick anybody can do: Slip a sheaf of papers into a metal box in Anchorage, Alaska, or Oslo, Norway, and a few days later it will be in someone’s hands in Cape Town, South Africa, or Albuquerque, New Mexico.

OK, you’ll need a stamp, but what the postal service does is still something of a miracle. On foot, horseback, train, planes, and trucks, postal carriers have faithfully delivered the news around the world since the days of Cyrus the Great. Herodotus marveled about how undeterred these couriers were by snow, rain, heat, or darkness.