TO DEFRAY EXPENSES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9919, 6 August 1910, Page 5

TO DEFRAY EXPENSES.

THE LIQUIDATION OF THE LOST.

Like the lost babies referred to by Peter Pan, the lost property which finds its way into the hands of the police is, after being stored for a specified and lengthy period, sold "to defray expenses." Such sales occur whenever the accumulation of unclaimed goods in the possession of the police appears to necessitate a clearance, and the "genuineness" of the sale being beyond dispute, the auctioneer is always sure of a large and eager attendance of bidders.

At noon to-day the court-yard at the. rear of the Christchurch Police Station was the scene of one of these periodical sales, and as the principal articles to be disposed of were bicycles, it was only natural that the sale should be attended mostly by cyclists. So many cyclists assembled that the whole of the frontage of the station was fringed four and five deep with bicycles, while against the iron railings was piled a similarly thick array of machines. The crowd inside the court-yard was a dense one, and.it was also frugal of mind and sceptical regarding the merits of second-hand bicycles. The auctioneer for the occasion was Sergeant M'Lennan, of the District Staff, _ and he was assisted by a uniformed sergeant whose onerous duty it was to push back the crowd and preserve a small space in which the articles might be raised aloft for inspection. The sale opened with the bicycles. There .were a great many bicycles, of a great many makes'and m various degrees of disrepair. "Hie fact that their erstwhile owners did not value them sufficiently to ransom them from the police probably prejudiced the buyers against them, while the fact that a prolonged sojourn in a police store-room invariably causes tyres to "perish" was another factor against high bidding. The usual starting price was 6s or , 10s. An Englishmade bicycle in a fair state of* repair was disposed of for £2 5s j a RudgeWhitworth which had seen better days and lost a tyre went for thirty shillings, an ancient Massey-Harris realising a similar amount. A front wheel was knocked down for 7s 6d, and a bicycle denuded of wheels lacked for bidders. One machine, for some reason inscrutable to most of the onlookers, elicited spirited bidding, and was sold for £3 10s.

Following the bicycles came an assortment of cycle accessories, which sold freely at low prices. Then came the sporting feature of the sale—the purses. The police are handed ■ many purses and few owners come to claim them. Sometimes the purses contain money. Occasionally they contain a great deal of money, but the unpretentious wallet stuffed with ten-pound notes and the t>pulent-looking crocodileskin purse that contains two halfpenny stamps and a cancelled tramticket are alike placed before the public at auction without any information as to their contents. On the whole, the purses fetch remarkably good prices, for there are many blanks and few prizes. . Following the purses came a miscellaneous assortment of goods, ranging from curtain-poles to flat irons. The mystery as to liow some of these articles could ever be lost is one which will never be solved, aud the reason ,which prompts people to buy some of these articles is similarly obscure. However, the sale comes to an end at last. An army of more or less successful speculators streams through, the gatea bearing bicycles and bric-a-brac, and the auctioneer-sergeant carries indoors a brown bag comfortably filled with coin and note issuo of the realm. And nobody really knows who had the better of the transaction.