![mailbox and post mailbox and post](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/08/8e/6f/088e6f2a9518d9b15fc349c57d09b3f1.jpg)
The US Postal Service is under heavy pressure financially.
![mailbox and post mailbox and post](https://images.homedepot-static.com/productImages/f4ed9071-611c-486a-a687-f635d597db61/svn/gibraltar-mailboxes-mailbox-post-kits-hcebpbk1-64_1000.jpg)
It is entirely for a different reason – to protect theft and loss of packets. You will be mistaken if you think that this is due to a sudden romance developed with Britain. As reported in one of the issues of the New Yorker, the US is replacing its mailboxes with ones having a smaller opening. It is therefore quite logical that the packets being mailed by Americans are fatter and the mailboxes are made to accommodate them. The portion of food served in restaurants is huge the average size of a house, including probably the owner of the house, on an average, is bigger the average size of the supermarket, including the available portion of the produce is bigger. From my several short visits in the last two years, I realized that the scale of everything in America is huge compared to England. This is not surprising as we have inherited all these from the British during the colonial rule in India for more than two hundred years. Letter boxes in India and Britain are very similar a slim, red iron cylindrical structure, with its top looking like a human head, and a slit in the front to drop letters. Americans use the tray to place letters, British use it to place waste. It has a huge opening with a big lid, which can be used as a tray when it is opened. I would not have been able to locate the letter box if you were not with me.’ Truly, it looks like a trash bin. When I pointed to a blue-coloured box located on the pavement (the British call it a footpath) as the mailbox, he was taken aback and commented “Oh, my God! It looks like a trash bin. While walking down the street with a British professor during one of my visits to the US, I remember how desperately he was looking for a letter box (Americans call it mail box).
![mailbox and post mailbox and post](https://secure.img1-ag.wfcdn.com/im/05089080/resize-h800-w800%5Ecompr-r85/6879/68790223/Baldwin+Post+Mounted+Mailbox.jpg)
Those who have visited the USA or lived there will remember the shape and size of the street-side letter boxes.