BABY IN HAMPER.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13835, 22 February 1909, Page 7

BABY IN HAMPER.

Of all the Christmas presents entrusted to the railway officials at Yuletide, probably the most remarkable was that reported in Home papers of December 28th as from Reigate. As a matter of fact, the gift took the form of a live baby in a hamper. It appears that about 8.15 on Christmas eve, almost immediately after the arrival of a train from London, a young woman, who was carrying a small hamper, presented herself at the booking office at Reigate. She said she wanted an outside porter to take the hamper to the address given on the label, and on being told what the charge would be she paid it and walked away. An outside man not being available, one of the station porters undertook to deliver the hamper. He, of course, hacl no idea that it contained a baby, and, indeed, believing that it was an

ordinary Christmas gift, he ran across the metals with it to the down platform to see whether there were any tjtlier parcels for delivery in the town. The hamper was addressed to a man servant- employed at a, local scholastic establishment. There the porter arrived with his- burden about an hour after it had been handed in at the statl°lhe man-servant 'received the hamper with obvious gratification, and told the porter 1 ' to wait." Allien straightway he took it into the kitchen, where some of his fellow-servants, were assembled. He placed it on the table and, surrounded by an interested crowd of onlookers, proceeded to unfasten the hamper. . • As he raised the lid it occurred to him that some thoughtful friend had sent him a turkey; T-hen, to his amazement, he saw a child's hand emerge. The next moment he found that the hamper contained a baby, only about a fortnight old. It was warmly clad, while "the sides of the hamper were lined with brown paper, presumably to make the receptacle as snug as possible. . . . The porter, who was waiting at the door, soon learnt that the hamper was not so welcome as he had expected it would be. Indeed, the recipient accompanied him and the embarrassing ' present back to ijlie stationinaster. He explained that he had no notion from whom it had come, and that, naturally, he had no desire to keep it.. The stationinaster thereupon handed the baby over to the police. Strange to say, all this time the baby had not made the slightest sound, and it was only when it reached the police station that it began to cry. It is supposed that just before it was placed in the hamper the ilifant was fed, and that it then went to sleep. The police sent the little one—a chubby-faced, baby boy—to the workhouse," where it remains. They are now trying to trace the young woman who handed in the hamper at the railway station. The' description given of her is that she was dark, between 28 and 32 years of age, and was dressed in black. , ■