The invention of horse-drawn vehicles made it possible to naturally connect the transport of goods and passengers with the transmission of news. The most important means of postal transport before the advent of the railway was a mail coach, mostly its fast version - a stagecoach. The guard of the mail coach, a postilion, took care of the safety of the passengers, but also the horses. He used a post horn to warn other coaches on the road to let the mail coach pass as well to signal its arrival at the post offices, which were evenly distributed along the main state roads for the needs of postal traffic.