CHAPTER XV.
Lost, Stolen, or Strayed.
This is the legend of the lost centipede that once held undisputed sway of the Lost Property Office at Scotland Yard before it came to an untimely end. It arrived with a cab-driver, housed in a little tin box, comfortably lined and pierced with air-holes. Casually an official opened the box, caught one glimpse of its contents, and jumped for safety while the centipede pleased at the opportunity of stretching its multitude of legs, cantered incontinently for the shelter of a pile of lost articles.
But even a centipede cannot defy Scotland Yard with impunity. The forces of the law rallied, and, headed by an intrepid inspector with a fire shovel, eventually tracked down the insect—or should it be animal?—and placed him under arrest.
Trial and execution followed summarily, and the honest cab-driver went empty away.
The Lost Property Office is not, as is popularly supposed, a general depository for all articles found in London. It receives only things found in public carriages—tramway cars, omnibuses, and cabs. Other articles are dealt with by the police in the divisions where they happen to be found. But, even as it is, it keeps a large staff busy month in, month out.
In the basement of Scotland Yard there are many rooms filled with articles varying from a navvy's pickaxe to costly jewels. Take an example of one year's working of the department. There were 90,214 articles deposited. Here is a rough classification of things dealt with in one year:
| Bags | 9,340 |
| Men's clothing | 6,749 |
| Women's clothing | 7,942 |
| Jewellery | 2,395 |
| Opera Glasses | 723 |
| Purses | 4,340 |
| Rugs | 273 |
| Sticks | 2,134 |
| Umbrellas | 35,319 |
| Watches | 451 |
| Miscellaneous articles | 20,548 |
Of each of these things a minute record is taken before it is stored in one of the large rooms, with barred windows, in the basement. Umbrellas, sticks, and bags, for instance, are classified, each under half a dozen or more heads, and the card index with different coloured cards for various months, enables an article to be discovered instantly. Articles to the value of £39,859 were restored to their owners.
Suppose you left an umbrella in a cab on June 16th, enquiry at Scotland Yard would enable it to be picked out at once, if it had reached them. You describe it as having a curved handle, mounted with imitation silver. At once an official turns to the blue cards in the index. Under "umbrellas" he turns to the subdivision W.M.C., which, being interpreted, means "white metal crook handle," and your umbrella is handed back to you. But you do not get it for nothing. There is a reward to pay to the cabman. In the case of an umbrella, or such small article, your own suggestion will be probably adopted, but on most things the scale fixed for gold, jewellery, and bank notes applies. This is, up to £10, 3s. in the £, and over that sum an amount to be fixed by the Commissioner.
The rewards paid out annually form no inconsiderable sum. Recently figures have not been published, but an idea can be obtained from those given a year or so ago. Then 32,238 drivers and conductors shared between them nearly £5,000. One lucky cabman got £100; six received between £20 and £100.
These rewards are mostly for articles claimed, which numbered 31,338 of the declared value of £31,560, out of 73,721. The rest, with a few exceptions, were returned to the finders after an interval of three months. This return to cabmen and conductors is an act of grace—not a right. In some cases where a thing is of value, and remains unclaimed, it is sold, and a percentage of the proceeds given to the finder.
While I was in the office a black cat strolled leisurely out from behind one of the crowded sacks, and rubbed itself against the knee of one of the officials. "Left in a tram car," he explained. "We had a tortoise, some gold fish, and a canary a few days ago, but they have been claimed. It was suggested that we might save space by having the cat look after the fish and the canary, but we did not think it advisable."
Almost any kind of a shop might be stocked with the loot of the Lost Property Office. There are false teeth, books, golf clubs, pickaxes, snuff-boxes, and ladies' stoles, stuffed fish, and wax flowers, petrol, and motor tyres, boots, and watch-chains, every conceivable kind of portable property that an absent-minded person might forget.
Each month's articles are kept separate, so that at the end of three months unclaimed things can be dealt with. A great safe swallows up all articles of jewellery or money of the value of £1 or more. I have seen a cabman hand over the counter an exquisite pearl worth several hundred pounds. It was examined, and then carefully sealed and placed in the safe. Constant handling of these things has made the officials quick and accurate judges of their value.
The authorities are not content to merely look after articles until they are claimed. Every effort is made to trace the losers, and a large clerical staff is constantly at work sending out letters where the property is marked or identifiable in any way, or where a cabman has remembered the address to which he has carried the supposed losers. More than 40,000 letters are sent out annually in such cases, and there are, in addition, something like 50,000 written enquiries to answer in a year.
This alone will show something of the monstrous business with which the officials have to deal. There is, of course, a constant stream of enquirers at the two offices, one at each side of the great red-brick building. One of these offices receives lost articles, the other restores them. Intermediately there are the vast store-rooms through which the accumulations progress every month, till in the third month all unclaimed things are ready to hand in the "outgoing" office.
Nothing but a well-organised system could avoid confusion, and confusion there is none. It is all part of a great business conducted on business principles. Every article, every farthing of money is recorded, with the circumstances under which it found its way to the Lost Property Office and its description, so that of the scores of thousands of things which pass through the hands of the officials, a ready history of each one can be quickly referred to.
There are queer visitors sometimes—persons who make preposterous claims for something they may have heard has been lost. These are firmly but effectively dealt with. On the other hand, sometimes articles of value are never claimed solely for the reason that their owners have no wish to make known their movements or whereabouts on a particular day.
Now and again the authorities find it necessary to remind people of the existence of the Lost Property Office. The following advertisement is typical of those inserted in daily newspapers periodically:
"Metropolitan Police.—Found in public carriages and deposited with police during June and July, numerous articles, including a bank note, a purse containing cash, a bracelet set stones, and a purse containing a bank note. Application for property lost in public carriages should be made personally, or by letter, to the Lost Property Office, New Scotland Yard, S.W. Office hours, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m."
Once every three months articles that have been unclaimed are sold by auction. The average proceeds of these sales are about £60, which is handed over to the Board of Inland Revenue. The Metropolitan Police receive no benefit from the vast machinery they keep in motion to guard the public from its own carelessness.
I cannot do better than conclude this chapter with the advice proffered to all those who use public vehicles: "The very great majority of articles deposited have been left inside cabs. Hirers, therefore, might with advantage make it a rule not to pay and discharge the cab before they are satisfied that nothing is left in the cab."