In the late 19th century, there is this guy living in England.

His name was W. Reginald Bray, and he was fascinated by the intricate workings of the British postal system.

He even bought a copy of the official guide to the services and regulations of the British Post Office,

and what he loved to do with the information contained

in that guide was stress-tested. For example, he read that there were no restrictions when it

came to how you formatted an address placed on a piece of postage. So he would address things to people

using rhyming verse or pictures cut out of newspapers that symbolized words, and seeing if his mail got

to where he wanted it to go.

In perhaps the most famous of his exploits, when he found out about an obscure facility

by which a person could be delivered to any address, he mailed himself, home.

He would pull all kinds of shenanigans like this.

He mailed his dog somewhere. He mailed

a turnip by carving an address with a knife into the surface of it. One time, he even sent

some mail to the stationmaster of a train station, and attached to that mail was a train

ticket and a request to put the letter on the train and deliver it to the stationmaster

of a different train station. And one time, in 1890, he put those postal regulations to a uniquely festive test,

by sending a postcard addressed to simply Santa Claus Esquire.

And I wish I could tell you that the British Post Office somehow found a way to deliver that postcard to the real Santa Claus,

but alas, it was returned to the sender as insufficiently addressed. Old W. Reginald Bray could do just about anything when it came to the mail, but he couldn't reach Santa Claus

Esquire. And one more thing he couldn't do, he couldn't affix a Christmas stamp to that

postcard to Santa.

And that's because this was 1899 and England didn't have Christmas stamps back then.

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