But the time was soon to come when ordinary citizens as well as officers of state were to share in the benefits of a postal system. In 1635 Charles I of England gave orders that a post should run night and day between Edinburgh and London and that postmen should take with them all such letters as might be directed to towns on or near the road which connected the two cities. The rate of postage[21] was fixed at two pence for a single letter when the distance was under sixty miles; four pence when the distance was between 60 and 140 miles; six pence for any longer distance in England; and eight pence from London to any place in Scotland. It was ordered that only messengers of the king should be allowed to carry letters for profit unless to places to which the king's post did not go. Here was the beginning of the modern postal system and the modern post-office. Henceforth the post was to carry not only the king's messages, but the messages of all people who would pay the required postage. The example set by England in throwing the post open to the public was followed by other nations, and before a hundred years had passed nearly all the civilized countries of the world were enjoying the privilege and blessings of a well-organized postal system. It is true that the post for a long time moved very slowly--a hundred miles a day was regarded as a flying rate--and postage for a long time was very high, but the service grew constantly better and by the close of the nineteenth century trains were dashing along with the mails at the rate of a thousand miles a day and postage within a country had been reduced to two cents,[22] while for a nickel a letter could be sent to the most distant parts of the globe. Thus far we have traced the history of only one kind of message, the kind that has the form of a written document and that is conveyed by a human carrier over land and water from one place to another. But there is a kind of message which is not borne along by human hands and which does not travel on land or water. This is the _telegraph_,[23] the message which darts through space and is delivered at a distant point almost at the very instant at which it is sent.