But the time was when nothing of the kind could have been done. In the "long ago" there was no post-office system in any country; no mails, regular or irregular, were sent from one place to another. The modern postal system evidently grew out of the practice among kings of sending couriers to carry messages from one to another. In the early times some powerful rulers organized a staff of government couriers. After a time it came about that these government couriers began to carry letters from private individuals of high rank to their friends. So, in the process of time, this grew into a permanent system; that is, the government couriers were accustomed to carry private correspondence as well as the missives of the king. This transmission of letters by special couriers sent out by the king dates back to very early times. Explorations in Egypt have brought to light specimens of these letters dating back to a period of two thousand and even three thousand years ago. Upon what do you suppose those letters, sent so long ago and preserved to the present time, were written? They could not have been written upon paper, for paper was not known in those days, and could not have been preserved through so many ages; neither were they written upon parchment or upon the skins of animals. These letters which have stood the test of time for twenty or twenty-five centuries were written upon tablets of clay or of stone. The development of the modern postal system seems to have been begun in Great Britain. Some of the account books of the kings of England who lived about six hundred years ago have been preserved to the present time. In these are found records of letter-carrying on regular lines and at stated intervals. From this beginning the English postal system increased in efficiency and importance; when the colonists came to America they early made arrangements for the carrying of letters. The records of the General Court of Massachusetts show that in 1639 it was enacted "that notice be given Richard Fairbanks that his house in Boston is to be the place appointed for all letters which are brought from beyond the seas or are to be sent thither to be left with him, and he is to care for them, that they are to be delivered or sent according to the directions; he is allowed for every letter a penny, and must answer all mistakes from his own neglect of this kind." In 1657 the colonial law of Virginia required "that every planter was to provide a messenger to convey the dispatches as they arrived, to the next plantation and so on, paying and forfeiting a hogshead of tobacco for default."