UNCLAIMED VALUABLES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19888, 6 March 1928, Page 10

UNCLAIMED VALUABLES.

ABSENT-MINDED BEGGARS. ARTICLES IN POST OFFICE. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONIteNT.J SYDNEY, Feb. 16. The number of absent-minded people in a community is amazing. Equally amazing is the amount of money which, m their forgetfulness, they figuratively throw to the four winds. The fact has just been revealed that cheques of amounts varying from five shillings to more than £SO have been found in unaddressed letters in the post office within the last few months. In the post office, among a diversity of other articles, is a beautiful gold wristlet watch. The unknown sender merely placed a penny stamp on the package and tossed it into the pillar box. For whom it was intended is no l#ss a mystery than the name of the donor. One compartment of the post office is fairly bulging with letters and parcels posted , without addresses, although, strangely enough, they are, for the most part, correctly stamped. The articles include not only money but such articles as socks and silk stockings, watches, powder puffs, wearing apparel, thimbles, pearl necklets, toys, fountain pens and what not. There are even bewitching jazz garters looking: for a home. What a human story Iherfe must be behind a lot of these things—a story of blighted hope, of disappointment, of lost confidence in someone,, perhaps who had been trusted to send some little article or other to a friend or relative as a gesture" of sweet love or affection. People often charge the post office with inefficiency. The boot is sometimes on the other foot.

Those who slip money and articles into the post office without any address are not the only absent-minded beggars. A man called at one of the big Sydney insurance offices a day or two ago, in response to an advertisement. He was delighted to be informed that a policy which he held there, had matured, and that several hundred pounds awaited collection. The insurance office had been endeavouring to trace the man for years. If he had not been located before the end of the month, the money would have had to be paid over to the Government, under the Act, which provides that money unclaimed after six years must go to the State revenue. Singularly enough, the claimant has been in Sydney all the time. He was under the impression that as bo had failed to pay the last few premiums the policy haa lapsed- The policy actually had been kept alive by the bonuses which had been allowed to accumulate.

In the next 12 months one insurance office alone expects to pay into the State revenue from £12,000 to £15,000 on matured policies for which it cannot find the owner; The same thing applies to other offices. ■ While unclaimed bank savings, which also run into a big sum, be- ■ come the property of the bank, unclaimed insurance policies have to go to the State. Thi3 absent-mindedness applies also to war gratuity bonds.< Although the war, happily, is a thing of the dim past, unclaimed gratuity bonds run into thousands of pounds. One woman casually turned up at the Commonwealth Bank only recently for her husband's gratuity, He is • somewhere out on tho fringe of civilisation.