£14,000 Found in Box

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 80, 5 April 1939, Page 2

£14,000 Found in Box

RAILWAYMAN’S DISCOVERY The story of a man who used a box as a footrest for two years in a railway station goods office has just come to light at Kimberley, South Africa. As a man lay dying years ago, in Arians Vlei. in South-west Africa, he made his will on a scrap of paper, crammed his £14,000 savings into u wooden box. and had it sent to a railway station to be delivered to the wife in Griquatown, near Kimberley, who had divorced him 20 years before. Then he died. The box made its journey, but the widow, thinking it contained only clothing or unimportant articles, refused to pay the 5s 7d demanded for railway transit. Officials decided to send the box to the lost property office, but by some unexplained mistake the wrong box was sent. The one containing the fortune re‘mained in the goods office of Kimberley railway station. After a railway official had used it as a footrest for two years the box suddenly broke open. The official bent down to pick up the pieces, and found a £2O note sticking out of a belt. Then he pulled out other belts and two serge wads packed solid with notes. He handed over tho money to tho Master of the Supreme Court. A few days later the widow received the battered pieces of the box she had refused, and the £14,000 found inside. This time she quickly found the 5s 71 which the railway demanded.