Lost Luggage Office.
At a short distance from the terminus of the up-trains there is a foundling-office, termed the Lost Luggage Office, in which are received all articles which the passengers leave behind them, and which on the arrival of every train are brought by the Company’s “searcher” to this office. The superintendent on receiving them records in a book a description of each article, stating on what day, by what train, in what carriage it arrived, and by whom found. All luggage bearing an address is kept about forty-eight hours, and, if during that time no one calls for it, it is then forwarded by rail or other conveyance to its owner. In case it bears no address, if not inquired after, it is after a month opened; and if any clue to the owner can be found within, a letter is addressed to him. If no clue be found, the property is kept about two years, and has hitherto been then sold by auction in the large coach-factory to the Company’s servants—a portion of the proceeds being handed over to the sick-fund for persons who have been hurt in the service, and the remainder to “the Friendly Society” among the men. It having, however, been ascertained that a few of the Railway men who had spare cash purchased the greater portion of these articles, it has, we understand, very lately been determined henceforward to sell the whole of this property by auction exclusively to the public; and as the Company’s servants are not allowed to be purchasers, they can no longer derive any benefit whatever from lost property, which must often be of inestimable value to its owner, and which they therefore should have no interest, direct or indirect, in concealing from him.
A second ledger, entitled “Luggage Inquiry Book,” is kept in this office, and, if the articles therein inquired after have not been brought in by the searcher, copies of the description are forwarded to each of the offices where lost luggage is kept; for, by the Company’s orders, all luggage found between Wolverton and London is without delay forwarded to the latter station, all between Wolverton and Birmingham to Birmingham, and so on.
It is possible, however, that the above orders may not have been attended to, and therefore, as a last resource, the superintendent of the Lost Luggage Office at Euston Station applies to the manager of the Railway Clearing House, who writes to 310 stations on forty-seven lines of rails to inquire after a lost article, be it ever so small, and if it be at none of these stations a letter is then addressed to the owner, informing him that his lost property is not on the railway.
In the office in which these ledgers and letter-books are made up are to be seen on shelves and in compartments the innumerable articles which have been left in the trains during the last two months, each being ticketed and numbered with a figure corresponding with the entry-book in which the article is defined. Without, however, describing in detail this property we will at once proceed to a large pitch-dark subterranean vaulted chamber, warmed by hot-air iron pipes, in which are deposited the flock of lost sheep, or, without metaphor, the lost luggage of the last two years.
Suspended from the roof there hangs horizontally in this chamber a gas-pipe about eight feet along, and as soon as the brilliant burners at each end were lighted the scene was really astounding. It would be infinitely easier to say what there is not, than what there is, in the forty compartments like great wine-bins in which all this lost property is arranged. One is choke-full of men’s hats, another of parasols, umbrellas, and sticks of every possible description. One would think that all the ladies’ reticules on earth were deposited in a third. How many little smelling-bottles—how many little embroidered pocket-handkerchiefs—how many little musty eatables and comfortable drinkables—how many little bills, important little notes, and other very small secrets each may have contained, we felt that we would not for the world have ascertained; but when we gazed at the enormous quantity of red cloaks, red shawls, red tartan-plaids, and red scarfs piled up in one corner, it was, we own, impossible to help reflecting that surely English ladies of all ages who wear red cloaks, &c., must in some mysterious way or other be powerfully affected by the whine of compressed air, by the sudden ringing of a bell, by the sight of their friends—in short, by the various conflicting emotions that disturb the human heart on arriving at the up-terminus of the Euston Station; for else how, we gravely asked ourselves, could we possibly account for the extraordinary red heap before us?
Of course, in this Rolando-looking cave there were plenty of carpet-bags, gun-cases, portmanteaus, writing-desks, books, bibles, cigar-cases, &c.; but there were a few articles that certainly we were not prepared to meet with, and which but too clearly proved that the extraordinary terminus-excitement which had suddenly caused so many virtuous ladies to elope from their red shawls—in short, to be all of a sudden not only in “a bustle” behind, but all over—had equally affected men of all sorts and conditions.
One gentleman had left behind him a pair of leather hunting-breeches! another his boot-jack! A soldier of the 22nd regiment had left his knapsack containing his kit! Another soldier of the 10th, poor fellow, had left his scarlet regimental coat! Some cripple, probably overjoyed at the sight of his family, had left behind him his crutches!! But what astonished us above all was, that some honest Scotchman, probably in the extasy of suddenly seeing among the crowd the face of his faithful Jeanie, had actually left behind him the best portion of his bagpipes!!!
Some little time ago the superintendent, on breaking open, previous to a general sale, a locked leather hat-box, which had lain in this dungeon two years, found in it, under the hat, 65l. in Bank of England notes, with one or two private letters, which enabled him to restore the money to the owner, who, it turned out, had been so positive that he had left his hat-box at an hotel at Birmingham that he had made no inquiry for it at the railway-office.