LOST PROPERTY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 114, 10 April 1930, Page 6

LOST PROPERTY.

DUTY OF FINDER

MAGISTRATE’S COMMENT.

(Bv Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) AUCKLAND. April 9. “If people find valuable articles there is an easy way to trace the owner—either by informing a constable or by advertising in the newspapers. “When person finds a valuable gold, watch in the street it is easy to take reasonable steps to find the owner, and failure to take those steps is a crime.” These remarks were made by Mr F. K. Hunt, S.M., in the Police Court to-day, when a married woman, whose name was ordered to be suppressed, was charged with stealing a gold watch, valued at £7, in June of 1927. Accused stated that she had found the watch on the roadside/ Chief Detective Hammond said that complainant had been to the Waikumete cemetery and then drove in a motor car to Henderson. When she left i the cemetery the was on her wrist, but it was lost on the way. Complainant advertised for. it twice. Accused admitted finding the watch on the road. •Mr Hall Skelton, who entered a plea of not guilty, said that there was no compulsion on a person to hand an article which was found to the police. “All these cases show that if a person picks up an article on the road and keeps it he ie. not guilty of theft,” he said, quoting precedents. “There is no onus on him to take steps to find tho owner.” >-j ■.« . ■

“We are getting too many cases where people find valuables and do not return them,” remarked the magistrate, after Mr Hammond had mentioned leading cases to (show that tho finder should endeavour to trace the owner. . . \ .

The Magistrate dismissed the case upon the payment of costs.