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Universal Postal Union in 1875. All civilized nationshave become members and since its foundation, theU.P.U. has insured the rapid and uninterrupted passageof mail throughout the world. The U.P.U. is one of thegreatest achievements of history. . REPUBLIK
 Figure 10. Stamps of Nigeria, Indonesia and San Marino com-memorating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Postal Union.
This, then, is the genesis of the postal systems as weknow them today. We have telescoped the centuries and,
perhaps, have not paid too strict attention to the actualchronological order of the events of ancient history. Suchexact placement of dates is important only to the pedan-tic. The struggles that took place prior to Sir RowlandHill's reformation are of interest only in that they presentthe background picture. With the adoption, on 6 May1840, of Sir Rowland Hill's plan the world's first postagestamp was born. From then to the present, the postagestamp has been the effective instrument that has madecommunication between people a common property ofall of the people of all of the world. Wherever someonecan read or write, the postage stamp is within his easyreach and because of this no place is too distant to bereached by means of a letter. It is interesting to notethat even an inability to read or write is not always acomplete barrier to the use of this marvelous system. In1939 the Republic of Argentina set up a "phono post"especially for the use of the illiterate. For a few extracents in postage you could dictate your message into amachine that would record your spoken words on aflexible disk. This you mailed to your friend who, to |
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