CURIOUS CASH-BOXES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7678, 11 April 1903, Page 1

CURIOUS CASH-BOXES.

1 (Tii-Bilt.) The giant . O'Brian, whose skeleton may be seen in the museum of the College of Surgeons, owed his death indirectly to selecting his fireplace for the bank in which to keep his savings', which he had invested in a single Bank of Englaoid note for £700. For a short while it remained in safety, bub, on^ morning, a servant chancing to light the fire without orders, the poor Irishman's fortune went up the chimney in sir-oke. This loss drove tho gkmt to drink, and he died soon afterwards. . An instance of a wooden log serving as a cash-box was brtught to light at an inquest held lately in the St Pancras In- . firmary on the body of a night-watchman. When admitted to the workhouse the man had shown particular solicitude as to his leg, which, on being examined at his decease, was found to contain ten sovereigns wrapped up in an old kkl glove and a purse in which was another pound. A false anm — not his own, but his wife'—was used by a Parisian artisan as a receptacle for his hard*-eained savings, which, converted as soon as they were sufficient in amount into twenty-franc pieces, were stored away in a cavity specially constructed in the artificial limb. Fear a time this novel idea answered/ admirably, but one day, subsequent to a quarrel between the parties, the wife eloped with a cabmanand took her husband'. cash-boXj, which at that time held over 600 francs, 'with. her. ' A wealthy butcher, liTiny in the V-Jette quarter of Paris, had 1 long been ..suspected of being a receiver of stolen jewellery. Last April the police made a descent upon his premises, with the result that they recovered £9000- worth of property, the majority of which was secreted), in the most unlikely places. In a large china sheep exhibited in the shop window were discovered no fewer than one hundred and fortywatches, twenty breast-pine, and' eleven bracelets ; while in a cow's head were hidden forty-eight diamond rings, eight watches and four necklaces. The custodian of the museum- in a certain south country town used! as , a cashbox one of the stuffed animals committed to his charge. In this he placed his savings, which had a/mounted to some £50, when the quadruped was one day, without his i knowledge, exchanged for some other curio. Great at first was hi* constjematiori, bnfc on explaining matter, to ite new owj__t be was permitted, to his great joy, to remove his money. ; Books have often been used as banks where bank-notes and paper securities have been concerned. A short time since an employee engaged at the well-known salerooms m the Rue Drouot, Paris, on examining the contents of a bookcase that was to be put up for sale, discovered between the leaves of one of the T&olumes a large number of deeds and debentures. At the'auction he purohased the bookcase, and disposed of half the debentures for over;£2ooo. On attempting, bowever, to negotiate the remainder he was arrested, and after an investigation the securities were restored to the heirs of the bookcase's original owner. Some time since a Hampstead Rood cycle iiepoire., on overhauling^^^.a y second-hand cycle that be 'b^i purchased, discovered ooncealed in the __n_le--_r nine half--

sovereigns. In a piano that two ladies purchased last yt-ar in a Belfast saleroom 1 were found a number of sovereigns ; while | in the old and unsightly iram« ot a." picture, j which a Hartlepool widow purchased two years since at a local auction, were discovered no fswer than seventeen £5 Bank of England notes.