Since that
event another system of restitution has been followed, the sum exacted
in excess of the legal fare being deposited at the prefecture of police,
whither the traveler is compelled to go in quest of it.
At the prefecture of police is likewise situated the storehouse of
articles forgotten or left behind in public carriages. According to the
law, every coachman is commanded to inspect carefully his carriage after
the occupant has departed, and to deposit every article left therein,
were it but an odd glove, in the storehouse above mentioned. Each object
is inscribed in a register and bears a particular number, and the number
of the cab in which it was left as well. These articles fill a large
room, whereof the contents are ever changing, and which is always full.
Umbrellas, muffs, opera-glasses, pocket-books (sometimes containing
thousands of francs) are among the most usual deposits. In one year
there were found in the cabs of Paris over twenty thousand objects,
among which were six thousand five hundred umbrellas. Should the article
bear the address of the owner, he is at once apprised by letter of its
whereabouts; otherwise, it is kept till called for, and if never claimed
it becomes the property of the city at the end of three years, and is
sold at auction. A vast row of underground apartments is appropriated to
the unclaimed articles--dim cellar-rooms, lighted with gas. There may be
seen umbrellas by the hundred or the thousand, strapped together in
bundles and stacked up like fagots.
Pages:
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300