£14,000 FOUND IN – BOX USED AS FOOTREST

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 154, 25 March 1939, Page 6 (Supplement)

£14,000 FOUND IN - BOX USED AS FOOTREST

South African Railwayman’s

Discovery

The story of a man who used a box ns a footrest for two years in a railway station goods office has just come to light at Kimberley, South Africa. ,_ As a man lay dying, years ago, in Arians Vlei, in South-West Africa, he made his will on a scrap o'" paper, crammed his £14,000 saving., into a wooden box, and had it sent to a railway station to be delivered to the wife in Griquatown, near Kimberley, who had divorced him 20 years before. Then be died. The box made its journey, but the widow, thinking it contained only clothing or unimportant articles, refused to pay the 5/7 demanded for railway transit. Officials decided to semi Hie box to i he lost property office, but by some uu-

explained mistake the wrong box was sent. The one containing the fortune remained in the goods office of Kimberley railway station. After a railway official had used it as a footrest for two years the box suddenly broke open. The official bent down to pick up the pieces, and found a £2O note sticking out of a belt. Then he pulled out other belts and two serge wads packed solid with notes.

He handed over the money to the Master of the Supreme Court. A few days later the widow received the battered pieces of the box she had refused, and the £14,000 found inside. This time she quickly found the 5/7 which the railway demanded.