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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 1 (May 1, 1933)

Memories of Romance

Memories of Romance.

Royal Mail! What a wealth of romance in those words! What memories of heroic feats they recall in the rescue of the precious bags on land and sea! Yet the clever pupil of a public school can tell us that the word mail comes from the French “malle,” which means a bag or trunk. That same bright boy or girl can also tell us that the word post is not based on any root meaning speed or despatch, but that the word means a place and has the same Latin root as the word position. The word post is a reminder that the mails of ancient times were carried from post to post, that is in stages from place to place.