Interesting Parallels

Quick question:

There was a man. He was a con-man and a thief (and a scallywag in general), and he got caught. He was sentenced to hang, but there were ‘angels’ that prevented him from dying. He ended up being Postmaster General, and took his job very seriously. He started rubbing shoulders with the rich and the famous.

Who was he?

If you answered:

  1. Moist von Lipwig (of Going Postal and Making Money fame),
    Then you’re a true Terry Pratchett fan. You know Moist’s history well.
  2. Isaac Nichols,
    Then you’re either an Australian, or a history buff. Or both.

Isaac Nichols was the first Postmaster General of Australia. He was convicted of theft (which carried a mandatory death sentence, unless you chose deportation to the New Land a.k.a Australia). He ended up being the first Postmaster General of Australia, whom Govenor Macquarie described as “a most zealous, active and useful man”… similar words that Lord Vetinari used on Moist von Lipwig, eh?

As for why I suddenly mentioned Isaac Nichols, it’s part of my exam. Not postal history, but postal economics – which is why its good to read up a little on postal history.

Now back off. I’m going postal.

3 comments to Interesting Parallels

Leave a Reply

 

 

 

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>