LEFT IN TRAMCARS

Hokitika Guardian, 15 March 1932, Page 8

LEFT IN TRAMCARS

UNCLAIMED ARTICLES SOLD ABSENT-MINDED FOLK. WELLINGTON, March 12% ‘T can imagine a woman, closing a handkerchief or a pair of gloves, but can you see a full-sized -man- leaving a couple of spare tires iriici~''Et cai jack behind him in a tramoar ?” It v?as a City Council official who made that remark at the sale of leftand lost articles conducted in the Concert ■ Chamber by Inspector P. Hazeldon on Friday afternoon. y-

A woman might be excused for leaving an umbrella in a tramcar, but by the same law it is difficult to forgive the man who leaves a first-class steel shovel in the back of the car, or the boy who leaves a “Brownie camera on the seat. There is simply no accounting for the absent-minded-ness of people who every year leave hundreds of articles in tramcars and never make any attempt to recover them.

At Friday’s sale there were great mounds of attache cases, hundreds, ot pairs of gloves j dozens of parasols, walking sticks, scarves, overcoats, boots and shoes, a lot of cheap jewellery, a few watches, dozens of strings of pearls and beads. A dozen pairs of gloves in an attache case sold for 2 S ; then four attache cases, crammed full of gloves and odds and ends, brought, only Is (Id, and 'half-a-dozen pairs of spectacles sold for 4s. The highest price was realised for a gold ring with a half-sovereign as the adornment. This realised 14s —a bargain. Toward the end of the sale great parcels of miscellaneous clothing were sold for a shilling each. “Here are two gold brooches—and two that are not quite gold,” said the auctioneer in the course of the sale. “Now this may be a valuable lot, as you all know what gold is worth today.” He spoke with such convincing persuasiveness that doubtless many believed that the brooches which were “not quite gold” could be transmuted into that precious metal without a great deal of trouble. “There’s a hole in this umbrella,” said a woman purchaser. “Hint’s for ventilation.” said the ready auctioneer. “Tf that wasn’t there you’d die of suffocation. Next lot!”