TREASURE TROVE.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18591, 16 January 1926, Page 14

TREASURE TROVE.

; . THE FINDER KEEPS.

but takes a risk.

Tliat lucky man who often, finds feTticles of value on the side-walks, and who pockets them with an inward thankfulness and an outward calm, may be surprised to learn that in the eyes of the law he is as much a thief as the gentleman who lifts hats from cloakrooms or picks pockets. Finders who keep things and convert them to their own use make themselves liable to criminal prosecutions for theft. The correct procedure to be followed by the office-boy who salvages a five pound note which was sailing down the gutter or the young' lady who suddenly discovers a ring under the seat of a five-past-five tram, and covers it with a neat foot until she can alight, or, for that matter, the suburbanite who turns up a glittering tiara with his first spadeful of Saturday afternoon loam, the correct procedure is for each of them to take the article to the Police Station immediately, and surrender it. Then he or she may return home and hope that the rightful owner is dead or abroad, or too rich to bother about recovering trifles. Virtue in this matter has been rewarded at least twice in this city of Christchurch. One honest journalist found a ten-shilling note, ami the Central Police Station kept it in its vault for six months, until, all hope of finding the loser having been abandoned, the note became the rightful property of the journalist. In the other instance a bank note was kept for a period of years before it was returned to the man who found it. On the other hand, there are examples of what happened to unscrupulous people who believed in the Divine right of "finder keeps." Not very long ago a man was convicted in Hamilton for not doing all he might to find the owner of a lost article.