Posting Yourself In The Mail

[MrRING]

Where did this idea originally come from, real life or a particular fiction? And if actually tried, was it successfully done?

I was watching an old Roger Moore Saint episode where, to avoid an attempt on his life, he has himself boxed and crated to the warehouse of somebody who seems involved. It occurred to me that this was earlier than the previously earliest relating of the story, which was a song on the second Velvet Underground album, wherein a lovesick goof tries to mail himself to his long-distance girlfriend with catastrophic results.

Please merge if there is a previous thread on this subject.

 

[Bigphoot2]

I was told if I ever want to get rid of a body, the easiest way was to send it by Parcel force.

 

[GNC]

I'm sure I just read about a baby who was posted by its mother to a children's home, but I'll be darned if I can recall where I did.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Perhaps the most famous example was Henry Box Brown:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Box_Brown

Brown was a slave in Virginia who escaped by being shipped in a crate to abolitionists in Philadelphia in 1849.

Here's an 1850 lithography commemorating the event ...

Perhaps not surprisingly, Brown went on to a career as a magician.

Brown's own autobiographical narrative can be accessed at:

http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/brownbox/brownbox.html

 

[EnolaGaia]

English collector and eccentric W. Reginald Bray claimed to have been the first person to have posted himself through the mail. Sources state he did this twice - once via regular mail and once via registered mail. He seems to have had a sort of mania for testing the limits of the postal service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Reginald_Bray

http://www.wrbray.org.uk

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-eccentric-englishman

(Edit) NOTE: I believe Bray's approach was to present himself as a 'letter' who was then more ushered than carried through the system. I don't think he enclosed himself in a box (or whatever) for his self-posting stunts.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Australian athlete (javelin) Reg Spiers sent himself as boxed / crated air freight from London back home to Australia in 1964.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reg_Spiers

2015 BBC story with photo:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31700049

 

[EnolaGaia]

There was a 2003 air freight incident in the USA in which a Charles McKinley boxed and sent himself from New York to Dallas:

Escape from New York. In September 2003 Charles D. McKinley, 25, had himself shipped by airfreight from New York to his parents' house in suburban Dallas, his goal not freedom but saving the plane fare. This being the 21st century, McKinley took along not water but a computer and arranged for a pickup from a business in the Bronx. The carrier, Kitty Hawk Cargo, flew the encrated man from Newark to Buffalo to Fort Wayne, Indiana to Dallas, whence he was transported by truck to his folks' house. He'd have gotten there undetected except that at the last minute he apparently removed a covering of some kind, allowing the deliveryperson to see him while unloading the box. The jig up, the driver called police, who arrested McKinley on some old warrants. A federal official conceded that U.S. air security measures clearly weren't the impenetrable shield one might like in the wake of 9/11.

SOURCE: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2633/special-delivery

More details on McKinley's self-forwarding can be accessed in the Department of Justice press release concerning charges being brought against him:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050525...sao/txn/PressRel03/mckinley_complaint_pr.html

 

[MrRING]

All very interesting - I guess Henry Box Brown, unless an earlier version exists, is the progenitor of posting ones self!

 

[EnolaGaia]

An unnamed Turkish national escaped from a German prison in 2008 by hiding himself in a box being dispatched from the prison mail room.

Inmate escapes German jail in box
A manhunt is under way in western Germany for a convicted drug dealer who escaped by mailing himself out of jail.

The 42-year-old Turkish citizen - who was serving a seven-year sentence - had been making stationery with other prisoners destined for the shops.

At the end of his shift, the inmate climbed into a cardboard box and was taken out of prison by express courier. His whereabouts are still unknown. ...

FULL STORY: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7730018.stm

 

[EnolaGaia]

All very interesting - I guess Henry Box Brown, unless an earlier version exists, is the progenitor of posting ones self!

Brown is the earliest example I can find of posting / forwarding oneself via an institutionalized service (in his case, apparently railroad freight rather than the post).

I have little doubt there are older cases of people being smuggled in boxes / crates / coffins / whatever.

 

[EnolaGaia]

In 2012 a young Chinese fellow boxed and forwarded himself to his girlfriend as a prank. He nearly died of suffocation when delivery was delayed (courier either lost or mistook the delivery address), and he ended up spending circa 3 hours enclosed rather than the planned 30 minutes.

FULL STORY (WITH PHOTOS OF THE DELIVERY):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...uriers-lose-delivery-address-THREE-HOURS.html

 

[hunck]

The Reg Spiers example is a great story, & a bit comical in parts. 3 days in a box - got to admire the man's determination to get back in time for his daughter's birthday.

 

[Mythopoeika]

You've got to wonder about the 'toilet arrangements' for such a stunt.

 

[Bigphoot2]

You've got to wonder about the 'toilet arrangements' for such a stunt.

Lots of bottles and pray they don't turn the parcel upside down.

 

[hunck]

It goes into that in the bbc link:

"I got out of the box between London and Paris, dying for a leak," says Spiers. "I peed in a can and put it on top of the box. I was stretching my legs and all of a sudden, because it's a short distance, the plane began to descend. A little panicky I jumped back in the box, and the can full of pee was still sitting on top."

and

"It was hot as hell in Bombay so I took off all my clothes," he says. "Wouldn't it have been funny if I'd got pinched then?"

doesn't mention any No 2s though. Probably best left to the imagination.

 

[escargot]

English collector and eccentric W. Reginald Bray claimed to have been the first person to have posted himself through the mail. Sources state he did this twice - once via regular mail and once via registered mail. He seems to have had a sort of mania for testing the limits of the postal service.

When I worked on t'Royal Mail in the '70s part of the training involved learning about things that shouldn't be sent through the post. These items (dangerous substances, ammunition etc) were regulated by law and the list ended with something like 'Persons may not be sent by Her Majesty's Mail'. This was, we were taught, a response to a particular 'eccentric' (i.e. tediously self-aggrandising posh) man's efforts to 'post' himself. It was probably Bray.

 

[Mythopoeika]

It goes into that in the bbc link:


and

doesn't mention any No 2s though. Probably best left to the imagination.

It's possible to do without number 2s for 3 days.

 

[escargot]

You've got to wonder about the 'toilet arrangements' for such a stunt.

Ship and plane stowaways stuff themselves on chocolate before their trip to induce constipation.

 

[EnolaGaia]

When I worked on t'Royal Mail in the '70s part of the training involved learning about things that shouldn't be sent through the post. These items (dangerous substances, ammunition etc) were regulated by law and the list ended with something like 'Persons may not be sent by Her Majesty's Mail'. This was, we were taught, a response to a particular 'eccentric' (i.e. tediously self-aggrandising posh) man's efforts to 'post' himself. It was probably Bray.

Bray wasn't the last to pull this stunt in the UK.

In 1909 suffragettes Elspeth Douglas McClelland and Daisy Solomon had themselves 'posted' to the Prime Minister:

Elspeth's time as a suffragette is best known for when she was sent as a "human letter" to the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, on 23 February 1909. At this time Post Office regulations allowed individuals to be "posted" by express messenger, so Elspeth and fellow suffragette Daisy Solomon "were dispatched by Miss Christabel Pankhurst from Clement's Inn and were taken by Mrs. Drummond to the East Strand Post Office".[2] They were addressed to "The Right Hon H. H. Asquith, 10 Downing Street, SW". For the price of a threepenny stamp, A.S. Palmer, a telegraph messenger boy, delivered them to Downing Street, where the policemen on duty allowed them through to number 10. At that point, an official came out and "notwithstanding the ladies' protest that they had been 'paid for', said 'you cannot be delivered here. You must be returned; you are dead letters'".[2] Elspeth and Daisy were returned to the offices of the Women's Social and Political Union. The Prime Minister was said to have been "amused" by the incident.

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elspeth_Douglas_McClelland

Here's a photo taken of their 'delivery' to 10 Downing Street ...

 

[Mythopoeika]

 

[Ermintruder]

NOTE: I believe Bray's approach was to present himself as a 'letter' who was then more ushered than carried through the system

I must defer to the classic insider understanding possessed by @escargot1 on this, but I understand that at one time it was possible to send even an elephant as letter-post via the Royal Mail (for reasons of speed and favoured handling). My fractured recollection regarding this is that this was an entirely-seperate stratum of superior speed than mere First Class or Second Class.

Naturally, common-sense would dictate that an elephant being sent via Royal Mail would normally travel as Parcel Post. Probably.

 

[Krepostnoi]

I must defer to the classic insider understanding possessed by @escargot1 on this, but I understand that at one time it was possible to send even an elephant as letter-post via the Royal Mail (for reasons of speed and favoured handling). My fractured recollection regarding this is that this was an entirely-seperate stratum of superior speed than mere First Class or Second Class.

Naturally, common-sense would dictate that an elephant being sent via Royal Mail would normally travel as Parcel Post. Probably.

Surely a small packet, Erm. (Can I call you Erm?)

 

[henry]

imodium can help prevent toilet stops

john cale/lou reed :

 

[Shady]

I'm sure I just read about a baby who was posted by its mother to a children's home, but I'll be darned if I can recall where I did.

You did, not sure if it is on the WTF thread

 

[Shady]

Given how some parcel firms treat parcels I would not attempt it.

 

[MrRING]

It does appear as Mythopoeika indicated that it's become an internet meme now:

 

[Ermintruder]

Surely a small packet, Erm. (Can I call you Erm?)

Erm, "The Intruder" doesn't mind being called 'Erm', for short.

The trouble with trying to send an elephant as a small packet is the evident dimensional challenge presented by the word "small". A letter could be any size. As could a parcel (most-especially).

I do clearly remember when a Mini Cooper (a 1:1 full size one) was sucessfully-imported into the former West Germany as a keychain charm. It had a large chain welded onto the car roof. This was probably in the 1980s....

 

[GNC]

You did, not sure if it is on the WTF thread

Thanks - the old memory is getting rusty!

 

[Shady]

Thanks - the old memory is getting rusty!

Tis here
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/strange-crimes.13684/page-131

 

[GNC]

Tis here
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/strange-crimes.13684/page-131

Gawd bless yer, ma'am! *Tugs forelock*