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Portmanteau (mail)


A portmanteau (Listeni/pɔːrtˈmænt/, /ˌpɔːrtmænˈt/; plural portmanteaux or portmanteaus) was a traveling bag (suitcase style) used as a mailbag. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, both newspapers and letters were transported in these leather mailbags that opened into two sections.

The etymology of the word is the Middle French porte-manteau, from porter, "to carry", and manteau, "coat, mantle". A court official carried the robes of a king in a portmanteau (traveling bag). The portmanteau had two hinged compartments and hence this idea of "two" carried over into early America.

English merchant Thomas Witherings established mail routes throughout Europe in the 1620s. He drew up a proposition in 1635 for an English mail system based in London in which portmanteaux (containing 2 leather bags lined with cotton) could travel to European towns with sealed bags of mail for protection against spies. The system was put into motion and some 26,000 letters mailed safely unopened between London and European towns each week.


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