LOST AND FOUND AGAIN

Taranaki Daily News, 17 October 1935, Page 7

LOST AND FOUND AGAIN

TRAVELS OF A BANKNOTE

RECOVERED IN UNUSUAL FASHION.

NUMBERS BEAR A CHARMED LIFE.

DISCOVERY AFTER MANY MONTHS.

When one goes on holiday one expects to return with less money than at the beginning, but a young New Plymouth man who went to Wellington last summer did not relish the loss of a 10s note, which he felt he could have disposed of to much better purpose. On his return to New Plymouth, however, and with the passage of time, other daily troubles minimised the gravity of the occurrence. He went about his usual work for several months, wearing his usual clothes, and it was not until the other day that he had deeasiori to take a pair of shoes to be resoled. By that time the episode of the 10s note, together with his holiday, had faded into the past. The shoe mender was a man of gentle sarcasm. “You young fellows must have plenty of money to throw about,” he said when the youth called for his repaired footwear, “to be able to stuff your shoes with banknotes.” And he displayed a pitiful looking 10-shilling note that he had discovered in the toe of one shoe. How it reached its hiding place the owner could not, and cannot yet, understand, but he did know that since the summer he had walked many miles in those shoes, slowly grinding away the fragile currency. Now he had found the begrudged 10s its worn appearance held out little hope of its being any more use to him than it was when lost.

Hope springs eternal, however, and he tenderly unfolded the tattered paper to find both serial numbers intact and perfectly legible. The note is now being displayed as a curiosity, but it is already destined after its crowded hours of glorious life to be applied once more to its proper use before ending its days on the bank’s old-age pension list.