Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1880 — Lost Articles. [ARTICLE]

Lost Articles.

It may be very difficult to form any idea of the number and value of the articles lost daily in any large city, but in Paris, at least, it is easy to know what has been found by honest folk. There are numerous offices in every quarter of the town where anything found should be deposited. From these places the articles left in cabs or found in the streets are taken to a central warehouse at the Prefecture de Police. Aecording to the official statistics it would appear that during the year 1878 there were 19,740 objects of the most heterogeneous description deposited at the central warehouse. The central warehouse consists of two immense halls furnished with shelves like a pawnbroker’s shop, on which the articles are arranged after being carefully catalogued. As may be imagined, the number of small objects is large, but w-hat speaks most in favor of the honesty of the Parisians is the strong room of this establishment, in which the articles of intrinsic value are stored. It contains numbers of watches, gold and silver chainp, bracelets, lockets, and money in gi Id, silver, and notes. If after the expiration of a year the proprieter of an article deposited in this warehouse has not reclaimed his property, it is returned to the finder. From one cause or another a very large percentage is not reclaimed, and many valuable watches, bracelets set with diamonds, and the like, after lying in this warehouse for twelve months, then become the legal property of those who have picked in the streets.