Once, Was It Legal To Mail People?

Factual Questions
1

I had heard that in the first-half of the 1900’s, it was legal to send people by mail…usually sent by train, perhaps in a box car, I WAG? This was used as a cheap solution for travel. The context in which I had heard of this practice referred to immigrants, for example, with little money to get to their intended destination after getting off the boat at Ellis Island.

This is hard to believe. Is there any truth to this? If curious, I heard about this long-before the internet and Urban Legends were so rampant.

  • Jinx
2

afaik, it is legal to e-mail people from and to most countries
in the world, it’s just not very possible.

3

Jinx,
I’m laughing my arse off! Up late last night?:smiley:

I can’t give you any knowledgeable answer however, I would think, it would be legal. If you can send blood and other biological material… however, I think liability issues would come up. But back in the day? Who knows…I’ll ask my friend who works for the USPS.

4

I guess you never traveled on People’s Express in the 80’s. That was a step below getting mailed though.

5

…and the first thing I thought of when reading the thread title was Velvet Underground’s The Gift .

6

There is the case of people mailing themselves to freedom, such as Henry ‘Box’ Brown.

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

Never heard of the immigrant variation.