Life before email: A look back at the 'vacuum post'

"Long before the delivery of the first email in 1971, while most of the world was happy to wait around for snail mail, the Germans were busy blasting letters to each other at high speeds.

The tubular post, or pneumatic telegraph, was a Victorian invention that conveyed letters rapidly over short distances. It was once popular in shops — it survived in some London stores late into the 20th century — for conveying bills, memos and money from floor to floor quickly and securely.

But Germany took this technology a stage further by linking networks across the country so post could be sent speedily backwards and forwards. At first coaches and then trains made up gaps in the network."

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39563443-1,00.htm