Sticking with the romance theme.
From Messy Nessy, Chic, February 5:
Years before the Paris Métro opened, there was another subterranean transport system rattling away beneath the city streets. Instead of messages floating around in the internet ether of apps and social networks, if you wanted to send a note to someone in your city in the 19th century, you tube. A network of sealed lines laid in the Paris sewers carried your correspondence from A to B, in style. Although snuggled up alongside the stinking sewers, these metal tubes were dashing in their looks as well as their speed. Sure, ‘la beauté est dans la rue’, but it’s also underground. Let’s take a trip down the chute of the Paris pneumatic post…
Pneumatic post room (via)
During the Second Empire, electrical telegraphy, otherwise known as the texting of the 19th century, was so popular in Paris that telegraph lines became overloaded with Morse code messages. History took a pause and thought, let’s go back to old fashioned pen and paper....
....MUCH MORE
Lots of cities had the systems but Paris had a big one.
