An incident of an amusing though of a rather serious nature occurred some
years ago on the London and South-Western Railway. A gentleman, whose
place of residence was Maple Derwell, near Basingstoke, got into a
first-class carriage at the Waterloo terminus, with the intention of
proceeding home by one of the main line down trains. His only
fellow-passengers in the compartment were a lady and an infant, and
another gentleman, and thus things remained until the arrival of the
train at Walton, where the other gentleman left the carriage, leaving the
first gentleman with the lady and child. Shortly after this the train
reached the Weybridge station, and on its stopping the lady, under the
pretence of looking for her servant or carriage, requested her male
fellow-passenger to hold the infant for a few minutes while she went to
search for what she wanted. The bell rang for the starting of the train
and the gentleman thus strangely left with the baby began to get rather
fidgety, and anxious to return his charge to the mother. The lady,
however, did not again put in any appearance, and the train went on
without her, the child remaining with the gentleman, who, on arriving at
his destination took the child home to his wife and explained the
circumstance under which it came into his possession. No application
has, at present, it is understood, been made for the “lost child,” which
has for the nonce been adopted by the gentleman and his wife, who, it is
said, are without any family of their own.