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Observer, Volume 2, Issue 35, 14 May 1881, Page 373

You may have been a passenger in an omnibus or a railway carriage at a time when some one picked half-a-crown off the cushions or a shilling from the straw and anxiously enquired for an oAvner. At such a time every man instinctively feels in his pockets. Every man feels like saying that he is the lucky party, but an inward voice somehow restrains him, and he remembers that it is wicked to tell lies. The money is invariably pocketed by the finder, and he is set down in the opinions of his

fellow-passengers as contemptible and mean. Now, young S., of the Insurance Company, going up to Hamilton the other day, purposely dropped a Horin on the floor of the railway carriage, and at a proper moment picked it up and observed: "Who lost this florin?" Everyone looked at him, and every mouth watered. "Did anyone drop this florin?" continued S., as he held up the coin. There was another embarrassing pause. Then a bluff Waikato settler (a very big fellow) reached out for it with the remark : "I dropped it, sir. You are an honest man to return it." "Are you sure you dropped it?' "lam. lam not a liar." "But — you see — you " stammered the unfortunate S. "You give me my money or I'll wring your neck !" interrupted the other, as he readied out for his victim. S. gave it up. He looked white and red and green, and he felt so bad over it that he got out at Otahuhu and went home again by the first train.