I’m reading H.P Lovecraft “The Haunter of the Dark” and it has a paragraph or few about a postman’s skeleton’s being found with undelivered mail.
So, it got me curious. In reality, if a postman dies on the job while delivery mail. Does that mail go back to the depot, or undelivered or does another postman grab the mail and continue the route?
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Typically the postman will be entombed in his uniform, with his bag and any mail remaining in it, which will accompany him into the postperson afterlife.
Real answer: I used to be a postman (in the US). Every carrier has a scanner with them that tracks their position via GPS. If the carrier were to die on the route, whenever management or a customer discovers the deceased, the remaining mail would be handed off to the next available carrier and be delivered as soon as possible. The mail never stops.
Of course, I can’t speak to how the mail would have functioned a century ago.