ABSENT-MINDED BRITONS

Mataura Ensign, Issue 1413, 19 November 1904, Page 4

ABSENT-MINDED BRITONS

QUEEU THINGS LEI-T ]N RAILWAY CAIUUAGES AND ELSKWIIEKE. If you have lost a giant—a petrified Irishman, 12ft. 2in. in height, with a chest girth of GJft., and a weight of nearly three tons—you can obtain same by applying at the Worship street goods depot of the London and North-Western Kailway Company. It has awaited a claimant since IS7G, when it was, left behind' on the railway. As a rule, however, each big railway company holds an annual sale of the unclaimed property left in cairiages and trucks on their systems. And a more motely collection one,has never set eyes on. There are umbrellas and walking-sticks, and boots, and hats by the thousand. Every year each of the biir lines disposes of from 2000 to 350U umbrellas. carefully sorted, tied up in bundles of a dozen, and sold by auction at prices from 2s upwards. Hut far queerer things than those are forgotten by careless passengers. At King's Cross station not long back, besides hundreds of other curious articles, twenty-live volumes of the 'Encyclopaedia Briianniea,' an artilieal leg, a machine for generating "laughing gas," a cask „f beer, and 120 babies' bibs were "knocked down" to purchasers at the annual auction sale. On the South-Eastern and Chatham and Dover railways, so huge is the collection of lost property, that the companies have opened at St. Paul's station a joint office of no fewer than 16 rooms for the classification and bestowal of passengers' absent-minded-ness. Heccntly the catalogue of the periodical jumble sale announced that upwards of ."WOO umbrellas. i:i;!2 walk ing-sticks, 20 bicycles, 21 bottles of whisky, guns. swov-.U, firewood, a Union Jack, a harmonium, and a !>agatelle tabic were also up for disposal. There were also six bags of golf sticks 11 tennis racquets, 21 cricket bats, a pair of boxing-gloves, siz fishing-rods, three guns, one billiard cue, three iceaxes, and four alpenstocks, the latter evidently forgotten by an Alpine climber. Of gloves there were over 1000 pairs, and 970 odd ones, two rubber baths, a galvanic battery, a typewriter, and a lady's gold wakh and chain. Besides these there were

put up for auction 220 deserted pipes, ' a family Bible, a volume of Bunyan, a box of mustard, nn American revolver, and It) pairs of corsets. At a recent sale at the Kingsland road depot of the London and NorthWestern Railway Co another of those curious collections of articles was disposed of. Besides 72 odd elastic stockings, some careless chemist had forgotten 62 boxes of seidlitz powders •while a dentist had left behind him his operating chair. Twenty-eight volumes of the 'Pharmaceutical Journal' were left in a carriage, and they remained at the Lost Property Office foi a year unclaimed. Ninety-nine pounds of Turkish delight, a grey pug-dog, a cask of chillies, an Italian bedstead, a bag of marbles, and a toy horse on wheels weie also among the queer goods absent-minded persons had left behind them. The police authorities at Scotland Yard have periodical sales of thousands of just us curious tilings which have been left in cabs, omufiiuses, in the streets, and in other public places. On an average some SUO purses, many of them containing money, about 200 watches, and 300 pieces of i.,\ cilery are annually found, besides oostal orders, checmes, share warrants, and similar articles. Lost through the post, too, generally by eai'clessnv.s, are many hundreds of curious articles. At a sale recently 250 silk ties were sold for a sovereign, oo new pairs of boots reached .'!os, while only 12s was bid for 20 bottles of hair restorer and 70 bottles of drugs. Nineteen alarm clocks realised 13s, niucibottles of port and whisky 255, and 3750 cigars, together with a 'ipuVntity of books, wei'c parted with far a mere song. But the absent-mindedness of the general public was never more shown up than in a speech at a dinner recently, where air Austen Chamberlain was tlie principal guest. Ten '-'iters, said the Postmaster-General, were posted daily containing money and valuables which had no address whatever. One thousand registered letters came every day to the Bead Letter Offioe. because they were incorrectly or insufficiently addressed. These letters, for which the post office had to find owners, contained from £OOO,OOO to £7011.000 iii money, besides valuables of almost every kind.' In the course of a year. 100. there were 25,000,000 postal packets of one kind or another which it .was impossible, to deliver, because of the incorrectness of the addresses they bore, or the absence of address altogether.—'Pearson's Weeklv.'