The Tatler newspaper - Wednesday 7 September 1904

Parcel post by pump.
This picture shows the cylinder to be used in the new pneumatic parcel post, and its size may be gauged by comparison with the caddie. It will carry long articles like golf clubs.

What the pneumatic parcel post can carry.
The cylinders are of different sizes according to the contents. Here we see a bird cage, a dog, a guinea pig, and other articles that have been carried. People are already familiar with the same principle on a small scale at the telegraph offices.

A dog? Yes, and his name might be "Batch"! You can also see a drawing of him and read about him in this article. The dog "Batch" made daily journeys in a carrier through the demonstration tubes at Fulham. Not everyone was happy with that, as you can read in the Tatler newspaper a week later:

The Tatler newspaper - Wednesday 14 September 1904

Is it cruel to the dogs?
Mr. Fred E. Pirkis, the chairman of the National Canine Defence League, writing from The High Elms, Nutfield, Surrey, protests against the sending of dogs through tubes as described in a picture in last week's Tatler. He has been communicating with a veterinary surgeon, whose letter he has sent to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. I publish it herewith:

"Sussex Villas, Kensington, W., August 5, 1904.
My Dear Mr. Pirkis,
In reply to your letter of the 3rd inst. only to hand this morning, it is impossible to determine what such an unnatural experiment as that you describe might not involve. The first thing most dogs would do after being enclosed in a tube and finding itself invisibly propelled at the rate indicated, viz., 800 ft. in 25 sec., would be to resist, and either dislocation of a joint or fracture of a limb might result; but assuming that the dog escaped this, the effect of such rapid propulsion in an enclosed space upon the respiratory organs and the heart could not fail to be deleterious, while the nervous system would naturally suffer severe shock and thus intensify any injury that might accrue from this useless and unnecessary proceeding. It is difficult to understand why any man should select a living animal to illustrate the value of such an invention as the pneumatic express its ultimate object is the conveyance of inanimate material, and you very properly describe the experiment as a barbarous one, and the man guilty of such an unnatural proceeding ought to be punished.
Yours faithfully, J. Sutcliffe Hurndall, M.R.C.V.S."

The authors of these articles and the photos are unknown. Since it is published far more than 70 years ago, it is believed to be in the Public Domain.