RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31031, 11 April 1966, Page 18

RANDOM REMINDER

STICKY FINGERS

Souvenir hunting is one of the curses of our modern civilisation. There is a peculiar streak running through many people which urges them to collect things without asking. They would be horrified if someone used the word theft: but they seem to have an incurable desire to mark their passage through the world by gathering reminders of where they have been and who they have been with. Restaurants suffer particularly. The loss of cutlery is an occupational hazard. Ash trays also disappear

from all sorts of places, particularly If their owner has a mark on them. How many railway tea cups adorn domestic kitchens? Perhaps business itself is to blame to a certain extent, for the travelling public is encouraged in its acquisitiveness by the free gifts of pencils and wallets and things to mark a visit or a flight or a voyage. Occasionally, the souvenir hunter breaks new ground. Or was it a souvenir hunter who left his mark on a city hotel? The owner was out on his lawful occasions, and when he return-

ed he was horrified to find that his office telephone had disappeared. The wires were hanging there, neatly cut, apparently with a sharp knife. It was an odd sort of thing for anyone to add to a collection. Or was it the work of an angry man who could not get dial tone? Or preliminary action before the aquisition of another souvenir, such as the safe" Yes, the proprietor had paid the telephone account. At any rate, it would not be like the Post and Telegraph Department to act in such an arbitrary way. We think.