The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1878-11-23
A STRANGE CASE.
Remarkable Recovery of Money That Had
Been LOst-$500 in Notes About to be
Used to kinde Kitchen Fire.

A lady living in the western section of
the city, who had been in the habit of
placing her income, little by little, as she
received it, behind large picture in the
drawing-rOOm of the house in which she
lives, was yesterday greatly excited over
the supposed loss of all her savings. The
lady has living with her two nieces, who
do the Homework and superinteud the
work of the kitchen Two or three DAYS
ago they began cleaning the house from
top to bottom
After they had finished the upper stories
and had put down all the carpets, they
began the dining-room. They started with
the pictures. These they first took down,
busted, oiled, and then returned to their
places on the wan They had finished all
but the large one, behind which was the
money, aud were just about to begin oper-
ations on this one, when the door-bell rang.
This of course interrupted, for a while.
their work. The ringing of the bell was
caused by gentleman who wished to see
the aunt of the two young ladies-the
lady of thehouse
When she returned from her interview
with the gentleman, she found that the
young ladies-her nieces had taken the
picture down, cleaned it and returned it
to its place. At the time it did not occur
to her that the picture was the one which
she had selected as her bank. 1t was not
until yesterday that she thought of looking
behind the picture to see if her money was
still where she had placed it. She had
been in the habit of looking there every
day, in order to satisfy herselfof its safety.
When she went to look for it on this day,
she found to her great establishment and
grief, that it was gone.
The first thought was that the servant
had stolen it, but she knew she could
vouch for her servants honesty, and it
seemed almost like an impossibility that
she should have taken it. The whole
house was then ransacked, but with no
result-the money was still missing. Not
finding it, the lady became completely
overcome with anxiety.
1t took the combined efforts of the
young ladies fully an hour to calm the
poor lady's nerves After thinking the
matter over again the ladies' finally agreed
that the only possible way the money
could have been lost, provided it was not
stolen, was that it had fallen from the
picture to the floor while the picture was
being cleaned, and swept out with the
dust aud dirt that had accumulated in the
ROOM
Then began an overhauling of the dirt
pile and the garbage-boxes but with the
same result. Finally they agreed that
the servant should be taken into confidence
She (the servant) after having been told
of the money, recollected that she had
taken from the diuing-room the day shey
were cleaning bundle of old papers, and
these she was using to kindle the fires.
They then looked through all the old pa
pers she had, but without finding the
money. The servant then remembered
she had just before they came into the
kitchen put some papers In the range to
start fire, and that she was only waiting
for them to leave the room before applying
the match to the paper. 1t occurred to her
that the money might possibly be in these
papers. Without saying word she rushed
to the fireplace and began taking out the
wood that she had PLACED therein.
The ladies, who had seen her when she
first moved toward the stove, were now
standing over aud watching her with ca
ger interest Finally, after everything
had been removed, the servant thrust her
arm in the stove and, tie the immense de-
light of those who were watching her,
drew therefrom FIVE hundred dollars-the
missing money.-BdLto. Bulletin, NoU IS.