LOST PROPERTY

Evening Star, Issue 23350, 21 August 1939, Page 10

LOST PROPERTY

THOUGHTLESS TRAVELLING PUBLIC ARTICLES LEFT IN TRAMCARS FALSE TEETH TO PUSHCHAIRS The next time your wife tells you she bus loft her umbrella somewhere, but just simply can’t remember, ask her if she has been on one of the city trams during the day. If she has, then send her down to the tramway office, and in all probability there will be the missing article. A glimpse into the left luggage office of the tramways is, very revealing. One very definite conclusion is borne in upon one’s mind, and that is that women are very forgetful. Over the past three years literally hundreds of women’s umbrellas have accumulated. They are of every conceivable shape, size, and colour. Some are in good repair, others a trifle dilapidated. “If we never saw daylight wo would always know when it was raining,” the officer in charge told a reporter. ‘‘ In come the women’s umbrellas.” Why is it that so few of these articles are called for? Is it because a fairly' serviceable umbrella can be purchased) at a reasonable figure and womenfolk just can’t bo bothered about calling at the tramway office, or is it that they “ simply can’t remember ” where they leave them p Women, apparently, are more careless and forgetful of their belongings than men. Of all the gamps lying in bundles, all duly ticketed and numbered, down at the tramway office, there is only one belonging to a man I A WIDE RANGE. Thoughtlessness, carelessness, or just sheer laziness! Call it what y’ou will, there are all manner of articles left m trams and duly held against the time the owners may come in for them. Perhaps it is a combination of all three, and, except for really valuable articles, the others remain to collect in a lumber room. Gloves I There are bundles of them, suede, wool, leather; all manner of gloves, but they are all odd. Madam removed a glove to find a threepenny piece to give the conductor. Judging by the odd gloves that are found, she must drop it bn the floor of the tram and walk off and leave it. Men, too, are offenders in this regard, for odd gloves belonging to them are also retrieved. Cold, wet weather, and those of ths warm and wooly variety turn lip, for even this week-end a half-dozen arrived to add to the collection. Among the collection, too, were four complete pairs. SCHOOL BAGS AND BOOKS. School hags by the dozens. They pile one atop the other, the forgotten property of some budding hopefuls, who have, no doubt told their parents they’ didn’t know where they dropped their bags. “ Johnny, where did you leave your bag. Surely you must remember? ” And stubbornly Johnny replies; “ I dunno where I left it.” Small juveniles on the lowly rungs to learning, though, are not the only ones to leave articles apropos their studies in the trams. Students blithely stepping off the car, possibly dreaming of a pair of fond blue eyes, or a head of auburn hair, leave text books behind them. Sometimes they retrieve them—sometimes not.

And the sport. He is as bad as anyone. Football togs, boots,' and jerseys go to swell the collection of unclaimed goods. Again, summer season brings in its collection of towels and swimming togs, so that even a lost luggage department lias its seasonal periods. Tennis rackets and hockey sticks also get left behind. _ Sometimes they are called for, especially if the article concerned is fairly new and in good shape. Lunch bags, both adult and juvenile, are also numbered among the quaint odd collection of stuff a tram conductor picks'up from under scats. The lunches are tossed out and the bags go into the general collection. THOSE PERSONAL ARTICLES. The variety of odd, personal things people of both sexes leave behind them is inconceivable. There are scarves. Surely one would imagine a scarf would be missed! There are watches, hats, library books, jewellery, roeary beads, walking sticks that elderly gentlemen leave hanging over tho seat in front, tobacco pouches, and! handbags and purses. If either of the latter have any considerable sum of money in them they are called for; hut quite often a purse containing a shilling or two is found, and the owner never troubles to inquire after its fate. All these articles are numbered and entered as they reach the depot, so no difficulty is experienced in tracing them should! the rightful owners arrive on the scene. If money is not collected after 12 months it is banded over to the conductor who found it, the purse or hag going into the general collection. For the work entailed in keeping “ tag ” of all these lost goods, the office makes a charge of 3d to anyone collecting an article left behind and subseqently recovered. Strange, but true, even children’s push chairs have been brought into the salvage depot; more, it is, said that some years ago even a baby was brought into "the office. This, though, was claimed. Sometimes a savings bank book, too, is picked up in a tram, but invariably the worrying owner calls to see if it has been found. STOCKINGS TO BIBLES. Women’s silk stockings! Neatly wrapped up in pared. Often, very often there are such parcels found. Young Miss 1939 gets a “ ladder ” in her stocking going to work. She buys another pair, changes, and leaves the old ones in the tram, whether by accident or design it is impossible to say. If a good memory is a virtue, then some people who go to church do notpossess this attribute, for quite a number of prayer books and Bibles find their way into the tramways lost luggage room, having been picked up by the conductors in the ears. Occasionally, too, a set of false teeth has been found, a demijohn of beer, and an odd bottle or two of whisky. These are the types of articles that are recovei'ed by their owners. During the heavy snowstorm in July a young lady left a camera in a bus which became stuck on Lookout Point. Quite a good camera it is, too. She called at the office tho next day in the hope of retrieving it, but without success, simply because the bus could not be brought down off the hill. The camera was found when the bus was brought in, but the young lady has never troubled to call again. Unless she makes up her mind shortly to again investigate, the probabilities arc it will join the collection of unclaimed goods in the auction room sale. Overcoats and clothing of various descriptions, a roll or two of bandages, tins of jam, pieces oi fancy dress cos-

small or too large or too strange to be left behind. Altogether about 2,000 articles .a year are collected by tramwaymen from the cars. When a big percentage is not reclaimed there must come a time when a clearing sale is essential. That time is fast approaching. The proceeds from the sale of these goods are given to the tramways sick benefit fund. So, as with everything, your loss is somebody else’s gain.