[masswerk]

I once saw a humble, but quite astounding artefact on TV: a box for mailing eggs, of course, Victorian. Behind this hides an entire system of postal service and mail train delivery. A, say, Cornish farmer would put fresh eggs for an individual customer in said box in the early morning. Those boxes were then collected by the postal service and shipped by train to London, where it was delivered to the customer's home, just in time for breakfast, the very same morning. (Amazon next day delivery pales in comparison.)