STRANGE FINDS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 115, 12 November 1930, Page 18

STRANGE FINDS

' BUCKETS OF GOLD

HOARDS OF THE IGNORANT

SOME BIG FOETUNES

I Strange a& it may appear, there are ' t»till many people who oaunot understand how a bank can afford to look after their money and give them interest on it. The circulation of money is essential to the prosperity of-a country, ana to hoard it in-a stocking is not only dangerous, but"also unfair to the community. All education ought to include a grounding in these elementary economies (says an exchange). Quite apart from anything else, people who prefer to hide i heir savings about the house run the risk of losing them ,in various ways, in addition to th«" loss 'of considerable interest that would have 'accrued* from the bank. Recently,," for instance,' a wellknown banker told'of a labourer who visited' the bank with, 90ft sovereigns, "this gold- hoard, accumulated by_ the man's family for three generations, was* terribly dirty, and* coins dating back to'the early Georges had to be forced asunder with a knife. It costover £4 for light weight, no to mention the enormous loss of inteiest. .Then-there was, the ease, a few yeais ago, of the' Northumberland couple who lrad their life's savings, amounting to the substantial sum of £10,00U, stolon from a safe in the house, -nlieie it was kept owing to the wife's distrust of banks. They not only lost their saiings, but they "bad boon losing hundreds a year, for had this money been invested at the rate which could have been obtained for quite safo "giltedged." securities and mortgages, it would have pro'dueed an income oi' from £500 to £600 per annum. IRISH THRIFT. A County Galway shopkeeper, who died a few months ago, was firmly convinced that the time would come when the banks would not honour their notes, and the notes would, be worthless. In a number of hiding placea in hij house and shop he kept his savings hidden in the shape of gold and Treasury notes. In one room ho had £200 in gold in 'a jam jar concealed under the floor. He had another £200 in a chest on the landing of tho stairs. Altogether he had nearly £SOO secreted. After his death the hiding places were discovered. It was in Ireland, too, in Tyionu, that an.extraordinary hoaid of banknotes" and P sovereigns, was discovered in the house of an elderly woman after her death.. She lived alone, except for a man-servant, on a lonely farm in a mountainous district. Rolled up in a mattress oi her bed, and in \arious holes in her bedioom, notes to the value of £1300 were found, while a jam pot in the same room, full of sovereigns, added another1 £10b to her hoard. The oldiways of miserly hoarders has seldom been lnorcstrikiugly illustrated than in tho diacovery, about nine months ago, of fully £2300 in tho humble abode of a seventy-year-old spinster at Soutbsea, near Portsmouth, after she had been taken to tho workhouse infirmary. IN, BUCKETS. 'Gold in buckets; gold iv baskets; "packets'of •it-e\«rywhere, find bundles of brightly polished coins of every-de-nomination littering the floor with the accumulated rubbish of ycais! While I the gold and silver coins Were merely wrapped in tiny scraps of paper or thrust into purses,(about 400 wore uncartlied), the copper coius were i-arc-fully wrapped in rolls and piles. • There were thousands of these and'tbey filled ""a large washing basket. There were also- a Post Offico Savings Bank book and'a Building Society Book which together showed.i balance of over £300. As a matter of fact, one hears of people hiding money in all sorts of odd and'unusual places—anywhere, indeed, but in a bank., Millworkers are especially prouo' Nio the u&o of old' stockngs. and cushions Beds arc no longer popular hiding places) for thieves uatj urally look 'thero first. The writer heard ot an old woman who boasts, that one of her old boots | has served her as a "bank" for "many | a year." She puts odd shillings and copp.ers in this boot, stuffs the top with I old paper, then hides the boot up the chimney every night for safety. . CHIMNEY LOSS. Tho chimney as a hiding-place spolt misfortune to a couple who placed their little bundle of Bank of Ungland and Treasury notes there only for an innocent and unsuspecting person to come along and light a fire, with the result that the paper money was all consumed. Another old couple placed their lite savings—quito a lespoctablo sum of money, representing a lifetime's thrift and frugality—in a boiler in a cellar while they went on their holidays, and found to their dismay on their return that some light-fingered individuals had'".nia'de: off with them. With many women a jar or an ornament on the mantelshelf is a favourite place in which to deposit their spate cash, and otheis make a piactice of hiding their money in tho cups ■which hang iusidc the cupboards, or placing it inside the box or canister which holds tea or sugar. In farmhouses, iavouritc spots tor hiding marke-t-day money are the bottom of grandfatlier clocks, bread bowls, and lamps. One farmer's wife recently lost £20 when the lamp, iv the bottom of which sho had btuffed tho notes, was knocked over and a fire ensued. An eccentric old gentleman used to hide his wealth, amounting to many thousands! or' pounds,'in. a numbtn of dummy books, that were really boxes, in/his library; the canisters iv his suigery were used as a sate deposit by a certain doctor who was lCpirted to bo "queer-" "in his ways; while an old lady, who died a number of years ago at Wimbledon,, instead of placing her tortuno of £24,000 in the bank, preferred lose the considerable interest which this would" have bFought'hcr (in addition ' to running .other obvious lisks.) and hid it is a loft ovp" a stable. ' IN THE STABfiE. " The stable as a. hiding-pldco has been resorted'to from time immemorial. Some, years ago fifty-five silver coins, da,ted at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of tho seventeenth centuries, were discovcicd in the thatch of a farmhouse near Preston, where they had evidently been placed on tho approach ot the Cromwcllian tioops. Redolent of romance, too, is the icmarkablo story of how 10,000 t,pade guineas were found a number of jeais ago, in an old manor house in Hertfordshire. The house had changed owners, and the new propnetor, a few ■weeks later, examined tho attics systematically. In one of the presses there he found a number of tattered and stained books, among them Doctor Crply's "Salatbiel," which he opened in casual curiosity. On a page ho came acioss a pencilled note indicating where valuables had been hidden in the hou&e dining the crisis of the 1745 rebellion. Forthwith, I ho bad the flooring of a cupboard .taken up, and there in a cavity lay tho pile o± spado guineas—ten thousand in all —a quantity of_ rare china and sil-ver,-some hiat editions oi vciy valu-

able books, all carefully wrapped, in silken^dresses, of that decade. , Justa year or two ago an-even bigger hoard—no Jes, stha'n. £20,000 —was discovered hidden" away on the . property of the latel Madame Hubert at La Betraite, St. Qweiv.'s, Jersey, by far the greater portion of which .'was- in 'gold; while less .than a. tjvelve-month ago, in two dilapidated 'rooms*in- his twelveroomed, house-in. Park' -lane, : Leeds, where' Dr.. Clarence 'j?o'stef-had lived alone, .there' was• found a.. fp'r'tuHo.;■•,'• of £30,000 -in bearer .bonds; The'-linlk.. of the bonds; were found; in a locked, chest of, drawers^ in an-. attic,v,aud : ithe \ re> mainder in an-unlocked sideboard.'in; a room, on tho ground floor. ":l :i ;'•,.,' ,"•». • QUEERPLACES; :. ' .' People who have no faith in bauks^like the Sydney .woman who not :■ /'so long, ago buried £12,000, in gold .in her.garden—frequently-choose the most extraordinary hiding-places imaginable for ■ their wealth. -Not so; long.', back, for instance, a Police. Court case revealed . the. fact ; that. a. London woman kept her money, hidden in her mother's grave in a suburban, cemetery; a harpsichord,- purchased by a workman in orctcr to. use- tho>wob.d. for:■fretwork, was .found-tb'contain some.thousands of pound 3in notes;, between, .the frame and canvas of'an old'and > dirty picture —picked up for. a •■'shilling pi'■ twp.iafcca sale —were- found, seventeen £.s'.nbtesy and a crutch, once'revealed"!a"" hollow in the wood, within "which 'were secreted £20 in notes' and'a- diamond -.scarf,-piri, which was sold -for as 'much more.■-.■'... - '.' 'Banknotes, too, have' been--found of late years that have, ■been placed against the' wall and-, papered „'.overj. gold, has" been discovered at .the bottom of flower pots "in which innocent geraniums .bloomed;;/tobacco jar's,'old loaf tins, imitatiptf -alarm* . clock's,' hollow table •legs,';»and, countless other. ingenious hiding-places have all'been used as home" safes by:■ thrifty folks Jwlid scorn' bank books. - "'" . -V ~■ ''; Probably the. absolute' '' 'limit,'' however, in the. .way.of, queer bank substitutes was •the large kvmcklc-bone. favoured' by an'-old -lluddersficld woman who died.:rpcently. ' With other .rubbish ' ..-ttie'; kuuckle-bone:i-.had. beenthrown; away by' the next-pf-kin. Later they found a "Stray dog che'wiiigV at" not ouly tire boue,.biit: a.- pound note. They rescued 'the bone, and .found: that a. hole had been scraped in it by tho careful old lady, arid filled with- ifroOiu-notes ' —a-bone-worth retrieving.'