HIDDEN TREASURE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 193, 18 September 1909, Page 3

HIDDEN TREASURE

CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT UNCLAIMED MONEY IX BANKS. Fifty millions of unclaimed deposits in the coffers of banks! Such was the amazing total arrived at, a few years j ago, by the Edinburgh Merchants' Company, which petitioned Parliament with the same object as a Bill recently introduced into the House of Commons—that all such balances shall be confiscated bf the Sttale. Whether the estimate is fairly accurate it is impossible to say, because bankers make no returns of "unclaimed funds in their possession, and refuse lo give any information on the subject. But bants unquestionably hold enormous sums for which no owners are forthcoming. An indirect proof of this is that savings banks, -which are obliged to publish their accounts, invariably acknowledge having some dormant and unclaimed balances. Only a few months since, one made a special effort to discover the owners of a number of such accounts; but, though it found the people entitled to £5172, it was unable to trace the owners of deposits aggregating £5124. ORPHANED THOUSANDS. Further evidence to the same purport is supplied on the occasion of a bank failure. When the Western Bank of Scotland went into liquidation, many balances were unclaimed, and, twenty years afterward*, there remained ownerless £10,308. In connection with the liquidation of the City of Glasgow Bank, again, no claims were lodged in respect of £51,143; and, though subsequent')' some of the money was claimed, the Assets Company not long since had thousands of pounds for which owners could not be found. Look, too. at the special manner m which the Old Lady of Threadnccdlestrcct deals with dormant balances of long standing. She invests them, and the interest which accrues is sufficient to pension the widows of her deceased clerks. Besides such testimony as this there are many isolated incidents which go to 6how that, if banks were made to disgorge the money to which they have no right, the ever-lightening grip of taxation might be promptly relaxed. A mysterious account stands in an alias of a maiden lady. After she had been a customer at a certain joint-stork bank for some years, she opened a second account in an assumed name —a practice which is constantly adding to unclaimed hoards in banks—and paid into it a lump sum of £7500. Subsequently her original account was frequently dealt with, but the other she. never touched. After her death her executors withdrew the balance of the first ac count. About the £7500, however, they said nothing—nor did the bank. For business reasons, a French gentleman once wished to commuicatc with n certain English lady, and wrote to her London agents, who, on making enquiries, discovered that she had died in a lunatic asylum. Her affairs wore then investigated, with the result that a solicitor recovered from a bank an account in her name which had been dormant for some time. MS-BANKING. A Dublin bank once issued a list of unclaimed property in its possession. Here are two suggestive items from it: "Box containing a number of silver articles, coins, medals, and seals, and having on it a crest, and the name "£. S. Cooper.' "Box containing diamonds and articles of jewellery lodged by Dr. Andrew Blake and George Jennings on December 22nd, , 1795." Thero arc many similar hoards in • Irish banks, numbers of which have rci mained in them sinci: the Rebellion. [ Some years ago an Irish peer, when n Melbourne, heUrd in romantic circumstances that a quantity of plate had been deposited in a Dublin bank by one , of his ancestors at the beginning of the s nineteenth century, and that there it ) still remained. The bank, on his communicating with it, at once admitted l his claim, and delivered up the treasure, —•Homo paper,