The Mail Carrier’s Drunken Folly
A mail carrier abandons his duties after getting intoxicated, leaving the territory's correspondence scattered in his wake.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
According to law, our mail is to leave this place every Tuesday morning at 6 o'clock. This law was grossly violated on last Tuesday. The mail carrier, after taking the mail from the office, concluded to have a 'spree' before leaving town, and accordingly 'got drunk,' and did not leave till in the afternoon. About an hour before he started, he turned the horse loose upon which the mail was lashed. When this horse was last seen, a few miles from here, the saddle was turned and the mail-bag was dangling at his feet. The probabilities are that the mail matter is entirely destroyed. Late in the evening, a gentleman came in from the prairie who informed us that he met the mail carrier about eight miles from here riding furiously towards the Cowlitz.
“The mail carrier, after taking the mail from the office, concluded to have a 'spree' before leaving town, and accordingly 'got drunk,' and did not leave till in the afternoon.”
Before modern infrastructure, the reliability of government services—especially in remote Washington Territory—was a major point of civic frustration. This story highlights the fragility of communication lines in a developing region.
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