What would you do if you had
to get your kid across town and you couldn't
afford a train ticket? If you said mail the
kid, even just as a joke, you might be surprised to learn
that it's already been done. Today, we're going
to take a look at how parents used to
literally mail their babies, because it was cheaper
than public transit. But before we get started, be
sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel and let
us know in the comments below what other strange,
antiquated practices you would like to hear about. OK. Got some mail here for you. Let's see. Junk, junk, 20% off
Bed, Bath, and Beyond. That's a keeper. Junk, junk. Oh look, it's a boy. The honor of being
the first baby to ever be delivered via
the mail goes to one Beagle. His parents, an
Ohio couple named Jessie and Matilda Beagle,
no relation to the hound, mailed James just
a few short weeks after the service
began operation. His intended destination
was his grandmother's home just a few miles
away in Batavia. As an eight-month-old who
weighed just under 11 pounds, James was still technically
under the weight limit that the Postal Service
was imposing at the time. And amazingly, the child was
mailed to his grandparents. Fortunately for the child,
the journey wasn't arduous. And he slept peacefully
most of the way. According to researchers
at the Smithsonian, mailing young James Beagle
cost a mere $0.15 in postage. However, while that
sounds like a bargain, his parents also ensured
him for $50, which was no small charge back then. While it might be
difficult for modern folks to wrap their head
around how parents could treat their kids no
differently than they'd treat any other parcel. it made sense to enough
people at the time. James's journey not only
created a sensation. It also established
a child mailing trend that would, believe it or not,
continue for several years. As little as a year
later, newspapers reported the story of a woman
named EH Stanley of Wellington, Kansas who had received her
two-year-old nephew by parcel post from his grandmother
in Stratford, Oklahoma. According to the article, the
boy wore a tag around his neck showing it had cost
$0.18 worth of postage to send him through the mail. He was transported 25
miles along rural routes before actually
reaching the railroad. But once aboard, he
is reported to have ridden with the
mail clerks and even shared his lunch with them. At first, child
mailing was mostly restricted to
smaller, younger kids. But as postal
weight restrictions shifted and relaxed,
older children began to be mailed as well. In 1914, a four-year-old named
Charlotte May Puierstorff was mailed from her home
in Grangeville, Idaho and sent via train to
her grandparents, who lived about 74 miles away. The little girl's journey
was widely publicized. And surprisingly, it
charmed the public, so much so that it inspired
a now legendary children's book called Mailing May. According to the
Smithsonian, little May wasn't unceremoniously
shoved into a canvas sack along with the other packages. As it turns out, she was
accompanied on her trip by her mother's cousin,
who worked as a clerk for the railway mail service. It's likely that his
influence, and his willingness to chaperone his
young cousin, is what convinced local officials
to send the little girl along with the mail. We would love to
be able to tell you that children were the most
bizarre packages being sent through the postal system
back in the early days, but that is not
even remotely close. According to The Washington
Post, when the parcel service began, all kinds
of cargo showed up in the mail stream including
coffins, eggs, and dogs. And that was just the beginning. There were also a host of
other questionable items being dispatched through the mail-- taxidermied animals,
deadly and inadequately contained medical specimens like
the smallpox virus, dead fish, and even buildings themselves. Yeah. Buildings were actually
mailed to their destinations in crushingly dense
blocks of bricks that would be assembled later. Getting back to the kids,
the longest known child postal journey was
undertaken by one Edna Neff of Pensacola, Florida. Edna was a six-year-old
who created a stir when she was mailed to her father in
Christiansburg, Virginia, which was over 720 miles away. While mailing children
wasn't unheard of, Neff's trip, primarily because
of its exhausting distance, was met with criticism rather
than whimsical amusement. And it ended up being a
major factor in child mailing becoming illegal in 1915. It just takes one person
to ruin a good time. While it is giggle inducing
to imagine children wrapped up like a Christmas
gift in colorful paper and a bow and then sent off in the mail,
that wasn't how it worked. Instead, the kids were
more like companions or well-swaddled bundles in
the arms of their carriers. In fact, in some
cases, depending on the distance in
question, they merely trotted along with the postman
as he went on his route and were delivered along with
the rest of the mail, which brings us to another
important piece of context. Namely, the people who
mailed their children weren't just handing them
over to some stranger. In most rural areas, people knew
their mail carriers personally and often relied on
them for more than just bringing the mail. So the child likely
knew the mail carrier they traveled with, which
is kind of comforting. By many conventional measures,
the early and mid-1900s represented a simpler and safer
time for American society. Creepy vans with free candy
signs on the side didn't exist. For that reason, local
postmen were often considered to be
beloved figures who were widely trusted by the
citizens they worked for. By one account, the mail carrier
was considered a crucial part of communities, a touchstone
with family and friends far away from each
other, a bearer of important news and goods. In some ways, Americans trusted
their postman with their lives and with their babies. To the average
American of the era, when it came to
trustworthiness, the mailman was right up there
with the stork. Both were counted on
to deliver your kids. When it came to traveling,
it was all well and good to be a rich kid
who could afford to take a trip in a luxurious
first class train compartment. But if you were a
working class child, things weren't quite
as easy or comfortable. That's why sending
children by post was considered by some to be
a sensible economic solution. In fact, in some
cases, the deliveries even took place off the record. Many who knew and trusted
their small town postman would simply ask them
to escort their child from one place to another
without all the legalities. If you think about
it, it's not too different than giving a Lyft
driver a few extra bucks to go the extra mile. Since the image
of the mail child was largely a charming
and quaint one, the practice wasn't
seen as cruel or unusual by most people. Most people were far more
concerned about the fact that the paper mail
never seemed to arrive at its destination on time. In contrast to pretty much
every other kind of parcel, there are no records of any
mailed children suffering any kind of damage
in transit or not reaching their
destinations as scheduled. In fact, by most accounts, the
postmaster general decision to outlaw the practice
really had more to do with possible
legal ramifications down the line
rather than anything that had actually happened. Basically, he just
wanted to stop pressing his luck the before
of some child ended up in the dead letter office. Though the practice
of mailing children was formally outlawed in
1915, those restrictions were rarely
enforced, although it may have been a case of
not being necessary anymore since so few people were
in the habit of mailing their offspring Nevertheless,
there are always those who try and skirt the system. A handful of kids were
mailed and delivered between 1914 and 1915. But by the time
1916 rolled around, the practice had ceased. The last child carried
by mail appears to be three-year-old Maud Smith,
whose grandparents sent her 40 miles to see her sick
mother in August of 1915. Superintendent John Clarke
of the Cincinnati division of the railway mail service
conducted an investigation into why the child was
transported even though it was against regulations. History doesn't record the
outcome of that investigation. But historians assume someone
probably got reprimanded. As late as 1920, the
postmaster was still rejecting multiple
applications to mail children. But Maud, as far as we know, was
the last to actually be taken. Despite all that, the
idea of naive parents mailing their children may
be a little too entertaining to be true. According to the
researchers at Snopes.com, the few documented
examples of children being sent through the mail were
nearly all publicity stunts. Snopes points out that all
of the known cases of child mailing either involve people
asking postal workers they personally knew to carry their
babies along their routes to nearby relatives or
children who were technically listed as mail so they
could ride on a train without buying a ticket. There is no known
instance of a parent simply dropping their
child off at a post office with strangers for delivery
to some far off place. Moreover, the widely
available photographs of mail carriers with
children in their bags are simply staged shots that
were taken to be humorous. But if you think the
days of human parcels ended when the fad for
mailing children petered out, guess again. As late as 1980,
one William Delucia caused a scandal when he packed
himself in an airborne trunk along with food
and an oxygen tank. As the US postal museum explains
it, upon arriving and landing at his intended
post office, Delucia climbed out, stole
thousands worth of goods from the registered mail, and
then sealed himself back up. While Delucia wasn't the only
one to attempt such a crime, those kinds of events ultimately
went the way of the dodo after the advent of scrupulous
airport security and state of the art package screening. As for Delucia, his plan was
foiled by way of a mishap. He was arrested at
the Atlanta airport after his trunk popped open
while it was being unloaded. So what do you think? Would you mail or
FedEx your baby? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our weird history.
