Sad news from Paris the other day: they have abolished the carte pneumatique, otherwise known as the pneu, an institution that dates back to the empire of Napoleon III. For those who did not spend some of their youth in Paris and therefore do not know about the pneu, it was a letter on gray paper that whizzed through a 269-mile network of pneumatic tubes and then was delivered by a mailman on a bicycle. Faster than an ordinary letter (it took about two hours) but cheaper ($1.80) than a telegram, the pneu provided...
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