Addressing communications to the post just for the pleasure of seeing whether the hard-worked authorities will be equal to deciphering them is perhaps not very considerate, but the officials are so very rarely found at fault that the laugh is almost always on their side. This phonographic postcard was delivered at the house of Mr. E.H. King, of Belle View House, Richmond, Surrey, who sent us the card within an hour and a half after he had posted it to himself locally.

That’s from the Strand, February 1899. “Phonographic” refers to a system of phonetic shorthand; this one must have been fairly well known if the G.P.O. deciphered it so quickly. Charles Dickens had to learn an early alphabetical shorthand for his work as a journalist; he adapted this later into a system of his own, some of which remains undeciphered.