The post office and its story an interesting account of the activities of a great government department

There is one British island at least which has no regular mail service, but occasionally improvises a curious service of its own. St. Kilda is a remote island lying off the west coast of Scotland about 50 miles from the nearest land. The scenery is wild and rugged, sheer cliffs rising from the sea in some parts to a height of 1250 feet, and covered by myriads of sea birds. There are about sixteen cottages on the island and eighty inhabitants. Two or three times a year during the summer a tourist steamer calls there, but the island is cut off from the mainland from August to May except for the occasional visit of an Aberdeen trawler. The islanders, left to their own resources, endeavour to open up communication with the mainland in this manner. They construct a sheepskin buoy, and the letters are enclosed in a tin canister with sufficient money to pay postage, and a wooden label is attached bearing the inscription: “St. Kilda mail. Please open.” The mail can only be launched with a hope of success in a gale of north-west wind, which drives it across to the island of Lewis, a distance of 60 miles. In a gale of this kind in 1905, the mail arrived on the shores of Lewis within two days. In the mail boat was found money to defray the cost of the postage. The dealer who sells in Glasgow and London the tweed woven by the St. Kilda islanders received half-a-dozen letters. They were salt with the lime of the sea, and in places scarcely legible. One of the islanders wrote: “Very few of the trawlers have visited us this year owing to the bad weather. I wish we could hear how you are all getting on on the mainland, and especially how the Churches are progressing.” The St. Kilda folk are keen theologians, and the struggle between the “United” and the “Wee Free” Churches interested them keenly. They were “Wee Frees” almost to a man.