Note 29 — Chapter I

A recent discussion in Notes and Queries (Tenth Series, vol. i.) has shown that envelopes are mentioned by Swift and later writers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They are sometimes called “envelopes” and sometimes “covers.” Their use must have been exceedingly limited, and still more limited, perhaps, is the number of people who have actually seen them. They were probably square sheets of paper used to enclose a number of missives addressed to one person or several persons living in the same neighbourhood; and were, most likely, better known to the race of letter smugglers (about whom see further) than to any one else. An obituary notice in the Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury of 23rd May, 1906, on the late Mr J. D. Tyson, “a notable Liverpool insurance broker,” shows how new the use of envelopes as we now understand them was more than half a century ago. The writer says: “Even the introduction of the envelope was greatly opposed by most of the old firms; and for fear the envelope would be thrown away and all traces of posting be lost, the juniors were instructed to pin the envelope to the letter. This had soon to give way when the usefulness of the envelope became so pronounced.”