LOST LUGGAGE OFFICE.
At a short distance from the terminus of the up-trains there is
a foundling-office, termed the Lost Luggage Office, in which are
received all articles which the passengers leave behind them, and
which on the arrival of every train are brought by the Company’s
“searcher” to this office. The superintendent on receiving them
records in a book a description of each article, stating on what
day, by what train, in what carriage it arrived, and by whom found.
All luggage bearing an address is kept about forty-eight hours, and,
if during that time no one calls for it, it is then forwarded by
rail or other conveyance to its owner. In case it bears no address,
if not inquired after, it is after a month opened; and if any clue
to the owner can be found within, a letter is addressed to him. If
no clue be found, the property is kept about two years, and has
hitherto been then sold by auction in the large coach-factory to
the Company’s servants--a portion of the proceeds being handed over
to the sick-fund for persons who have been hurt in the service, and
the remainder to “the Friendly Society” among the men. It having,
however, been ascertained that a few of the Railway men who had
spare cash purchased the greater portion of these articles, it has,
we understand, very lately been determined henceforward to sell the
whole of this property by auction _exclusively to the public_; and
as the Company’s servants are not allowed to be purchasers, they can
no longer derive any benefit whatever from lost property, which must
often be of inestimable value to its owner, and which they therefore
should have no interest, direct or indirect, in concealing from him.
A second ledger, entitled “_Luggage Inquiry Book_,” is kept in this
office, and, if the articles therein inquired after have not been
brought in by the searcher, copies of the description are forwarded
to each of the offices where lost luggage is kept; for, by the
Company’s orders, all luggage found between Wolverton and London is
without delay forwarded to the latter station, all between Wolverton
and Birmingham to Birmingham, and so on.
It is possible, however, that the above orders may not have been
attended to, and therefore, as a last resource, the superintendent of
the Lost Luggage Office at Euston Station applies to the manager of
the Railway Clearing House, who writes to 310 stations on forty-seven
lines of rails to inquire after a lost article, be it ever so small,
and if it be at none of these stations a letter is then addressed
to the owner, informing him that his lost property _is not on the
railway_.
In the office in which these ledgers and letter-books are made up are
to be seen on shelves and in compartments the innumerable articles
which have been left in the trains during the last two months,
each being ticketed and numbered with a figure corresponding with
the entry-book in which the article is defined. Without, however,
describing in detail this property we will at once proceed to a large
pitch-dark subterranean vaulted chamber, warmed by hot-air iron
pipes, in which are deposited the flock of lost sheep, or, without
metaphor, the lost luggage of the last two years.
Suspended from the roof there hangs horizontally in this chamber
a gas-pipe about eight feet along, and as soon as the brilliant
burners at each end were lighted the scene was really astounding.
It would be infinitely easier to say what there is not, than what
there is, in the forty compartments like great wine-bins in which
all this lost property is arranged. One is choke-full of men’s
hats, another of parasols, umbrellas, and sticks of every possible
description. One would think that all the ladies’ reticules on earth
were deposited in a third. How many little smelling-bottles--how
many little embroidered pocket-handkerchiefs--how many little musty
eatables and comfortable drinkables--how many little bills, important
little notes, and other very small secrets each may have contained,
we felt that we would not for the world have ascertained; but when
we gazed at the enormous quantity of red cloaks, red shawls, red
tartan-plaids, and red scarfs piled up in one corner, it was, we
own, impossible to help reflecting that surely English ladies of all
ages who wear red cloaks, &c., must in some mysterious way or other
be powerfully affected by the whine of compressed air, by the sudden
ringing of a bell, by the sight of their friends--in short, by the
various conflicting emotions that disturb the human heart on arriving
at the up-terminus of the Euston Station; for else how, we gravely
asked ourselves, could we possibly account for the extraordinary red
heap before us?
Of course, in this Rolando-looking cave there were plenty of
carpet-bags, gun-cases, portmanteaus, writing-desks, books, bibles,
cigar-cases, &c.; but there were a few articles that certainly we
were not prepared to meet with, and which but too clearly proved that
the extraordinary terminus-excitement which had suddenly caused so
many virtuous ladies to elope from their red shawls--in short, to
be all of a sudden not only in “a bustle” behind, but all over--had
equally affected men of all sorts and conditions.
One gentleman had left behind him a pair of leather hunting-breeches!
another his boot-jack! A soldier of the 22nd regiment had left his
knapsack containing his kit! Another soldier of the 10th, poor
fellow, had left his scarlet regimental coat! Some cripple, probably
overjoyed at the sight of his family, had left behind him his
crutches!! But what astonished us above all was, that some honest
Scotchman, probably in the extasy of suddenly seeing among the crowd
the face of his faithful _Jeanie_, had actually left behind him the
best portion of his bagpipes!!!
Some little time ago the superintendent, on breaking open, previous
to a general sale, a locked leather hat-box, which had lain in this
dungeon two years, found in it, under the hat, 65_l._ in Bank of
England notes, with one or two private letters, which enabled him
to restore the money to the owner, who, it turned out, had been so
positive that he had left his hat-box at an hotel at Birmingham that
he had made no inquiry for it at the railway-office.