WEALTH WAS HIDDEN IN A CRUTCH.
Mustard-Tins, Bicycle Handle-Bars, Bibles,
Nests of Mice, Chimneys, Etc.,
Have Concealed Treasure.
Old stockings are proverbially the savings-banks of the poor—and no interest on deposits. To-day, when all towns have their banks, the family hoard is usually more safely placed than in a domestic cranny.
Queer hiding-places are, however, still uncovered. There are savers who will not trust the banks. An English exchange, having collected facts in a number of cases where money has been found in very strange places, presents the following interesting incidents in this way:
A few months ago a dealer in old furniture secured for thirty shillings, at an auction held in a village near Carnarvon, North Wales, an oak dresser, part of the property of an old lady who had just died. On his arrival home he proceeded to overhaul his purchase, when to his surprise he discovered, on the top shelf, a mustard-tin filled to the brim with sovereigns and half-sovereigns.
An old bicycle was not long since knocked down to a gentleman for a mere song. In due course it was sent to a cycle repairer in Hampstead to be put in working order. During this process nine half-sovereigns were found concealed in the handle-bars.
In October of 1899 a gentleman residing at East Dulwich purchased at a local auction-room for a few shillings a parcel of second-hand books, among which was an old Bible. On the following Sunday his wife, on opening this, found several of the leaves pasted together. These she took the trouble to separate, when six five-pound Bank of England notes dropped out. On the back of one of these notes the former owner of the Bible had written his will, which ran as follows: "I have had to work very hard for this, and having none as natural heirs, I leave thee, dear reader, whosoever shall own this holy book, my lawful heir."
On the appraisers of the estate of an old miser, who died a year or so back at Newburgh, searching his house, they came upon an old cupboard seemingly filled with rubbish. This they overhauled, to find in a corner a family of young mice comfortably ensconced in a nest constructed of bank-notes to the value of four hundred pounds.
A mouse was the cause of a still greater find. As an old Paris hawker, named Mme. Jacques, was endeavoring to dislodge one of these little animals that had taken refuge in her chimney, she knocked aside some bricks and laid bare a cavity containing a number of bank-notes, amounting in value to forty thousand francs, which had belonged to a former tenant of the house, who had died seven years previously.
'Tis an ill-wind that blows no one any good. Some time ago an old Birmingham woman, who had the misfortune to lose her leg, purchased a pair of crutches at a second-hand dealer's. Not long after one of the crutches snapped beneath her weight, disclosing a hollow in the wood, within which were secreted twenty pounds in notes and a diamond scarf-pin.