The Gilded Age of the Mail.

This beautiful cast brass mailbox is set into the wall in the lobby of the hotel where we spent the last two nights. There are photographs displayed there showing the hotel in 1955, but it was probably a hotel for at least three decades before that and, judging by the architecture of the building, a schoolhouse before that. Anyhow, this mailbox is connected by means of a chute to a mail slot on every floor above it. The delivery of mail was once so important that heaven forbid one should have to drop a letter directly into this box on the way out for an evening of fun in Newport!