ore
than 40,000 letters are sent out annually in such cases, and there are,
in addition, something like 50,000 written enquiries to answer in a
year.

This alone will show something of the monstrous business with which the
officials have to deal. There is, of course, a constant stream of
enquirers at the two offices, one at each side of the great red-brick
building. One of these offices receives lost articles, the other
restores them. Intermediately there are the vast store-rooms through
which the accumulations progress every month, till in the third month
all unclaimed things are ready to hand in the "outgoing" office.

Nothing but a well-organised system could avoid confusion, and confusion
there is none. It is all part of a great business conducted on business
principles. Every article, every farthing of money is recorded, with
the circumstances under which it found its way to the Lost Property
Office and its description, so that of the scores of thousands of things
which pass through the hands of the officials, a ready history of each
one can be quickly referred to.

There are queer visitors sometimes--persons who make preposterous claims
for something they may have heard has been lost. These are firmly but
effectively dealt with. On the other hand, sometimes articles of value
are never claimed solely for the reason that their owners have no wish
to make known their movements or whereabouts on a particular day.

Now and again the authorities find it necessary to remind people of the
existence of the Lost Property Office. The following advertisement is
typical of those inserted in daily newspapers periodically:

"METROPOLITAN POLICE.--Found in public carriages and deposited with
police during June and July, numerous articles, including a bank
note, a purse containing cash, a bracelet set stones, and a purse
containing a bank note. Application for property lost in public
carriages should be made personally, or by letter, to the Lost
Property Office, New Scotland Yard, S.W. Office hours, 10 a.m. to
4 p.m."

Once every three months articles that have been unclaimed are sold by
auction. The average proceeds of these sales are about L60, which is
handed over to the Board of Inland Revenue. The Metropolitan Police
receive no benefit from the vast machinery they keep in motion to guard
the public from its own carelessness.

I cannot do better than conclude this chapter with the