贵州省委党校2016年在职研究生英语复习资料(完整版).docVIP

PAGE 1 完形填空 填单词 One of the many things we take for granted in the twentieth century is the speedy collection and delivery of letters to and from all parts of the world at astonishingly cheap rates. A husband away ona business trip can write home to his wife two thousand miles away knowing that the letter will reach her in a few days. His special air-letter may cost him less than a loaf Of bread or his own bus fare to work.. This service, however, is a blessing of comparatively recent establishment Until modern times the cost of sending letters privately was so great that the arrival of a letter was a considerable event And might even cost financial hardship to the receiver Who had to bear the charges. There were, indeed, from the Middle Ages onwards, special messengers who run state correspondence, and other messengers employed to carried with news between the great monasteries or the great merchants houses, but for centuries there was no public post service by which private letters could be sent. It was not until 1840 that the official organization known as the Penny Post was established in Great Britain and gave ordinary people cheap and efficient postal deliveries. The postal services since then have given us many obvious advantages. But there has been one result which makes us sometimes regret the passing of the bad old days. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the arrival of a letter was a great occasion, and the letter writer knew it. He did not limit himself to brief information about his own health and ask about his correspondent’s, but he would mention the things he had heard or the things that happened around. 我们以第二十个世纪的许多事情是理所当然的信件和来自世界各地的惊人的低利率的快速收集和传递。一个丈夫出差回家，他知道这封信将在几天内到达她二千英里以外的地方写回家给他妻子。他特别的信可能会使他损失一个面包或他自己的公共汽车费。然而，这项服务是最近建立的一个祝福。直到现代的私人信件的成本是如此之大，一封信的到来是一个相当大的事件，甚至可能会花费财政困难的接收器谁必须承担的费用。事实上，从中世纪开始，特殊的信使们携带了国家通讯，以及其他的信使，在大修道院或大商人的房子里去，并返回消息，但几个世纪以来，没有公开的邮政服务，可以发送私人信件。直到1840，正式组织被称为“便士邮报”成立于英国，并给了普通百姓廉价和高效的邮政递送。此后的邮政服务给我们许多明显的优