Richland beacon. [volume] (Rayville, La.) 1869-1890, 1873-04-26
Meum and Tuunl.

JUST the point at which indistinst ideas
of n,e,ln, and t,tun cease to be ''absent-
min ler' and become rather strange" is
diff cult one to fix upon. Is it books, is
it umbrellas, is it canes, is it Overcoats
Books are fairly on the hither side of the
mark. A passion even for purloining
literature is rather humane and elevated
! one. A taste for reading can scarcely, one
would think, exist in the same bosom
with so low a propensity as thieving. The
public conscience is generous upon the
subject of umbrellas. But when people
60 to apprOpriating trifles of less fluctu-
ating value, the question then becomes
what we call ''delicate." There are per-
sons in every community who do
''strange" things; their friends never
speak of 1t; the secret is kept most ju-
diciOusly by the entire village. The indi-
vidual 30 addicted is said to be peculiar, :"
though his friends do not believe that he
I'm, ans" any wrong. Our readers will
at once identify the character we wish to
designate. Still making large allow
ance for the number of such peculiar
people, it can not be that there are enough
Of them, recognized as such in the COM
munity, to account for the fact that the
man who loses a gold-headed cane or q
silk umbrella, with his name and address
marked upon it, has nine chances out of
ten that he will never see it again.
OF course, there are. we know, q large
class of professional thieves; there is also q
still larger class of persons who will ap-
propriate other peoples property when q
chance presents itself, but society has not
been prepared to believe that the number
of the latter class is so large as the alarm
ing facts would seem to indicate. Leave
an overcoat with your address in the
pocket, where 1t Is not watched. and, of
course, you must get another. Any cane
or umbrella, however distinctly marked,
will meet the same fate. Now there Is q
reason why it is unsafe to leave canes and
overcoats about. II q hundred people saw
the cane, al the honest ones would sup
pose 1t was put there by its owner and
that It was none of their businessman
the honest ones might number ten or fifty
or ninety out Of the hundred.
But when you lose money in the street,
the case Is different. Any man. honest or
otherwise, would stop to pick up note
or greenback on the pavement. Should
curious experimenter In public morals
take ten fve-dollar notes, and put each
Of them into IN envelope with his name
and address, and drop them carefully at
different points Of crowded thorough.
fare, how many Of them would be return
ed We do not imagine that any philos-
ophee ever lived who was sufficiently Gu
rfous and sufficiently flush to make the
experiment. But our weak faith and our
unlucky experience incline us to the opin-
ion that very few of these greenbacks
thrown upon the waters would be gath
cred after many days. We have heard Of
one old gentleman who turned misan-
thrope upon being swindled out Of some
money, and who devoted the remainder
of his life to riding up and down in the
and handing up the fares. In
returning change to the occupants, he al |
ways added . penny more than was due.
and his qualification was intense when las
happened nine times out of ten) the trav-
eler looked pleased and surprised and
pocketed the money.
The Chinese have q very queer notion
hat . lost valuable is by right the prop
,rty of the finder Should q Chinaman
zee you pick up his own lost jewel or
lager In the street, it would never occur
Q him to claim 1t. He would not claim