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HONESTY IN LONDON.

" NEW ZEAI/ANDER'S TESTr" "AN UNFAIR TEMPTATION." " ''A New Zealander, fire'd v , the ; laudable motive '. of ""' .discovering whether Londoners.',are honest, ; has been dropping" fair looking . wallets, about the streets and watching Ike result, writes John Blunt in a, London paper... The test seems to have_been. of a somewhat inconclusive; nature, .but, if that New Zealander really, wants an opinion of the subject, let him "read this article rather than play foolish tricks and put unfair tempt, ation in the way of others. The average Londoner is a lawabiding person and inherently honest. That is to say that in London, as in any other great city, there are not a large number of more or less dishonest people, but simply that the proportion is probably less than in most other great cities. A visit to the Lost Property Office at Scotland Yard, where all day long a crowd of people may be seen the most diverse arU-.

cICS .Git in uiverse rlacos, would do more to convince v tlxat. New Zealander of London's 'honesty than anything else. As a matter of fact, it is more than probable that several of his missed wallets will eventually .find their way there and would have done so in any case even had they been stuifed full of bank notes. I know that I recently left rather a valuable cigarette-case in a taxicab and that a few days later 'it was returned to me through the medium of Scotland Yard. I have no intention of tempting Providence again to test my theory still further, but if the New Zealander is not yet convinced, let him try this experiment. If he loses his cigarettecase he will be full of a pleasant gloom and if he recovers it he will be able to carry home with him a triumphant account of London's honesty. ~ What strikes me as much more astonishing than the honesty of most Londoners and the dishonesty of some Londoners is the absent-mindedness of apparently all Londoners. Whatever other business may languish through trade depression, the . Lost Property offices of Londoni will always flourish. The / extraordinary objects people leave in railway trains, the valuable things airily deposited in omnibuses, the bulky packages of perishable, goods which seem to fade from their owner's memory in the most unlikely spots, are altogether increditable. And what is almost more incredible is the fact that quite a large number of people never appear to remember that they have never lost anything. The unclaimed articles sold every.year in London by the railway companies would stock museums and shops.

Some people, I presume,-are too naturally pessimistic .to enquire; others, perhaps, enquire at the wrong place, but many evidently never discover their losses. A strange state of mind —but, after all, the type of man who is capable of forgetting his „chil_ dren—which has been known to happen—is capable of forgetting ! anything. 'Sticks and umbrellas.seem to be the things most frequently lost, and the things most difficult to recover. For some mysterious reason both memory and conscience appear to be on a lower level with regard to them, than with regard to, anything else. I*have not the faintest idea why this should be so, but I am afraid that there are a considerable number of, persons now, walking about London with sticks and umbrellas that are not their own —including several of. mine. Perhaps they annex them thus freely—having suffered themselves —on the principal of tit for tat.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/SNEWS19240212.2.23

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Shannon News, 12 February 1924, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
578

HONESTY IN LONDON. Shannon News, 12 February 1924, Page 4

HONESTY IN LONDON. Shannon News, 12 February 1924, Page 4

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