# Before the telephone, how did you get someone's attention if you needed them quickly? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 21, 2025, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945 "2025-06-21T18:42:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2025, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/21 "2025-06-21T23:45:15Z")
The postal workers carried the mail to be delivered in a shoulder bag. That could carry only so much, which is perhaps why there was more than one delivery daily. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2025, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/22 "2025-06-21T23:51:25Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > I wonder if that would have been the case in, say, New York or Boston in those days. In the Melville story Bartleby the Scrivener, the office employs a 12 year old boy to run messages and errands. It’s set in New York and was published in 1853. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2025, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/23 "2025-06-21T23:54:08Z")
For long distance communication there was also the [optical telegraph](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_telegraph), which predates the electrical telegraph ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/24 "2025-06-22T00:32:53Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > The postal workers carried the mail to be delivered in a shoulder bag. That could carry only so much, which is perhaps why there was more than one delivery daily. The volume of mail was a factor in double-delivery, but the main point for city delivery was just that, pre-fax, offices used the mail to send bits of paper back-and-forth. By the way, because of this thread, I’ve just looked at the internet. It appears that the assertion that London had deliveries “12 times a day” is an AI invention from the observation that the city (offices) had early and late deliveries – 12 hour-a-day coverage. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/25 "2025-06-22T00:50:03Z")
I can’t find it now but _vaguely_ remember a site that said the volume of mail exceeded the weight capacity of the mailbag, and that was a reason for multiple deliveries each day. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/26 "2025-06-22T00:55:49Z")
Besides London, Paris found it difficult to make timely delivery from telegraph reception and transcription centers to the end delivery points. Their remedy was a web of pneumatic tubes throughout the city, lasting long after the availability of telephones ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/27 "2025-06-22T00:57:27Z")
Of course those pneumatic tubes did double-duty as baguette delivery vehicles. ---
**Author:** ![vbob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vbob/32/4439_2.png) [@vbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vbob)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/28 "2025-06-22T00:59:31Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > By the way, because of this thread, I’ve just looked at the internet. It appears that the assertion that London had deliveries “12 times a day” is an AI invention from the observation that the city (offices) had early and late deliveries – 12 hour-a-day coverage. Numerous contemporary writings mention letters arriving in ‘the morning post’ or ‘the evening post’ which makes me think twice-daily was the norm. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/29 "2025-06-22T01:14:01Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I suspect all you had to do was open a window and yell, “Hey boy!” Which was also the preferred method for ordering prize turkeys. ---
**Author:** ![Kzbre5m](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f08c70/32.png) [@Kzbre5m](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kzbre5m)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/30 "2025-06-22T01:14:21Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > To be precise, Billy appeared in _[The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_Mazarin_Stone)_ There was another story with “the boy in buttons” announcing Miss Mary Sutherland (A Case of Identity). Usually it was Mrs Hudson. More out of the way was a “commissionaire”, which I guess is someone hired/commissioned to perform deliveries or buy something. Holmes had one acquire a turkey at Christmas to replace the one the commissionaire found. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/31 "2025-06-22T01:19:33Z")
Be careful not to over-tip, though. That messenger boy with two pounds in his pocket was Oscar Wilde’s undoing ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/32 "2025-06-22T01:54:57Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > By the way, because of this thread, I’ve just looked at the internet. It appears that the assertion that London had deliveries “12 times a day” is an AI invention from the observation that the city (offices) had early and late deliveries – 12 hour-a-day coverage. That can’t be true, since this claim is ubiquitous in pre-AI literature, including decades-old print books and websites I’ve read. And I don’t think the claim is necessarily wrong; [this 1864 book on postal history](https://archive.org/details/hermajestysmails00lewiuoft/page/32/mode/2up) states that the London Penny Post, established circa 1683, had deliveries “as frequent as six or eight times a day”. If deliveries were that frequent in the 17th century, it’s not a stretch to believe that they were twelve times a day in Victorian times. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/33 "2025-06-22T02:08:05Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > By the way, because of this thread, I’ve just looked at the internet. It appears that the assertion that London had deliveries “12 times a day” is an AI invention from the observation that the city (offices) had early and late deliveries – 12 hour-a-day coverage. That twelve figure looked high to me also, altho widely quoted. Here is a pretty good cite IMHO- [https://www.postalmuseum.org/blog/health-pandemics-and-the-victorian-post-office/](https://www.postalmuseum.org/blog/health-pandemics-and-the-victorian-post-office/) _With up to eight deliveries a day in London, the postman was someone with whom members of the public, particularly the middle classes, came into contact on a regular basis. The question of whether sickness can be contracted as a result of contact with these vital ‘key’ workers of nineteenth-century Britain was, therefore, a pressing one for the Post Office._ And of course the Square Mile was different than Metro London. > [@vbob](#): > > Numerous contemporary writings mention letters arriving in ‘the morning post’ or ‘the evening post’ which makes me think twice-daily was the norm. In other parts of London that makes sense. But if you were in the Square Mile, things moved very fast indeed during business hours. Maybe even hourly, sure at the height of the Postal service. We have covered this before- > [@How often did the Royal Mail deliver during the Victorian Era?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-did-the-royal-mail-deliver-during-the-victorian-era/348109/18): > > “They” being the well-off, yes. Your average working man would hardly ever write one. The population of greater London in 1900 was over 6 million, which would be the County of London plus the City of London. But the City of London alone only had about 30,000 people living in it at the time. I don’t know the area covered by the hourly post service mentioned about but I guarantee it would not be the whole city. It would be the City plus the more affluent suburbs around it, I’ll guess something … ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/34 "2025-06-22T02:36:04Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > By 1850, a city like London would be covered by a directory. Those were printed books, compiled and marketed commercially, with the postal addresses of upper-class and otherwise notable residents. Here’s an example of one from the early 1900s from a city in South Carolina. It is basically like a phone book without phone numbers, just addresses. > **[Page 1](https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/collection/cdsc/id/1986)** ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/35 "2025-06-22T11:11:39Z")
> [@Kzbre5m](#): > > More out of the way was a “commissionaire”, which I guess is someone hired/commissioned to perform deliveries or buy something. Holmes had one acquire a turkey at Christmas to replace the one the commissionaire found. But probably a uniformed, pensioned, ex-army, doorman, There is some suggestion that commissionaires were people who might undertake commissions, but a stronger suggestion that the word came into English from the French, where it was already used for hotel employees who mostly did things like calling a cab. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/36 "2025-06-22T11:58:49Z")
Back in the late 1950s, I lived in a small Cornish village. A guest sent a letter to his solicitor, whose office was in the City (of London). Letters for posting were left on a bench in the porch, and the postman would collect from there. A reply was received in the post the following morning. Our village was some eight or ten miles of country lanes from Newquay, where the main PO was. The postman must have got there in time to get the letter on a London train which arrived in time for the late afternoon delivery. The solicitor read the letter, scribbled a reply, and posted it on his way home in time for it to catch a Newquay train and be sorted for a morning delivery. The cost of a stamp then was 3d ( about 1cent) This was unusual and unexpected. He had expected the reply a day later, which would have been the normal service. At that time, offices in The City had four deliveries a day, but we in the country had only one. Note that mail was not put in a box on a pole on the roadside, but pushed through a letterbox in the door. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/37 "2025-06-22T12:18:07Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > > [@Kzbre5m](#): > > > > More out of the way was a “commissionaire”, which I guess is someone hired/commissioned to perform deliveries or buy something. Holmes had one acquire a turkey at Christmas to replace the one the commissionaire found. > > But probably a uniformed, pensioned, ex-army, doorman, Commissionaires were an organization of ex-military who performed a gradually expanding set of duties. Started in the UK in the mid 19th century. There’s also a Corps of Commissionaires in Canada, started after WWI. Yes, mentioned in Holmes. > [@](#): > > The **Corps of Commissionaires** refers to a movement in [Commonwealth](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations) countries of societies that provide meaningful employment for [veterans](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans) of the [armed services](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_services).[[1]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps_of_Commissionaires#cite_note-1) > … > Commissionaires appear in several of the [Sherlock Holmes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes) stories by Sir [Arthur Conan Doyle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Conan_Doyle), including “[A Study in Scarlet](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Study_in_Scarlet)”, “[The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_Blue_Carbuncle)” and “[The Adventure of the Naval Treaty](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_Naval_Treaty).” > **[Corps of Commissionaires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps_of_Commissionaires)** > > The Corps of Commissionaires refers to a movement in Commonwealth countries of societies that provide meaningful employment for veterans of the armed services. > The Commissionaires movement traces its roots to 1859, when retired army officer Captain Sir Edward Walter KCB organised seven injured veterans of the Crimean War and Indian Mutiny to act as nightwatchmen. At first limited to wounded men, it soon expanded to include all honourably discharged army and navy veterans. In the 1860s the corps ... ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/38 "2025-06-22T14:59:36Z")
I’ve been working on my family genealogy, and found Berlin street directories with my grandfather listed before he emigrated to the US in 1901. ---
**Author:** ![Kzbre5m](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f08c70/32.png) [@Kzbre5m](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kzbre5m)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/39 "2025-06-22T16:34:43Z")
> **commissionaire** I just liked the word as a kid as it was all x-height characters (Wikipedia being rather vague on the term), except for the three tittles of course. And in the “All I need to know is from Sherlock Holmes” vein, The Adventure of the Six Napoleons had an express messenger, which Holmes used to urgently send a letter some 15 miles from Baker Street. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945/40 "2025-06-22T17:03:40Z")
Thinking back to my student days (well before mobile phones or email, and in an old collegiate university where there’d be at best a payphone or two available to students), we delivered an awful lot of messages by postcards, pinned to or pushed under the door, as I realised when clearing out a whole lot of old paperwork. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-telephone-how-did-you-get-someones-attention-if-you-needed-them-quickly/1019945.md?page=3)