News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-10-14
HOW PEOPLE HIDE MONEY.
PLACES IN WHICH WEALTH Is
SOMETIMES CONCEALED.
Treasure Stored Away in Old Stock
ings, Brick Ovens, Wagon-Tops.

and Many Other Queer Places
Give had good deal of experience In
hunting for money that folks have con-
cealed,n said a gentleman visiting at
Park street in Lewiston the other day,
sand just as lief tell you what know
about it a mot.
'Fifty years ago folks, especially the
elderly people, took the utmost pains to
hide money. Old stockings, brick ovens,
old wagon-tops, china teapots, the tops
OF bedsteads, hair-cloth furniture used
| always to come in for big share of in
yestigation after the dear departed had
turned up his toes and had been laid
away. From that moment, as you well
know, the hunt began, and folks rum
mayed the house and pulled open the
feather-beds in search of the silver
sinners, the bca itiful yellow-boys, or the
crisp bank notes that it was supposed the
lamented deceased had left behind. 1
suppose that this instinct of concealing
wealth and of searching for 1t was bred out
of well-founded suspicion of the safety
of the old-time savings banks, and they
were rascally things, as l well know.
Ot course the hiding instinct was trans
mitted from father to son, and in my way
of reasoning the civil war had more 10
do with stopping this foolish plan of
boarding money than any other one
thing. 1t opened up more old stocking
legs and old colonial gold than hundred
years of peace woald have done, and yet
don't doubt, from my own experience,
that there are countless stores of gold in
buried places in Massachusetts and Maine
to-day.
81 could count up any quantity of
families who believe that secret hoard,
left by mysterious deceased ancestor,
exists somewhere for thom. / believe
that Captain Kidds treasure is awaiting
the coming of somebody keen enough
to discover it, don't you2" And here the
gentleman in the arm chair winked mys-
teriously, laughed at his own conceit,
and continued;
ga funny scheme, in which I once
came pretty near being interested, was a
stock company formed in Pennsylvania,
where was then living. 1t was designed
to make specially of hunting up con-
cealed treasures. | did some work for
them, and a partner and 1 were pretty
successful there and in New York State"
Glow do you go to workP
'Well, it is hard to say You have to
be guided by circumstances. Strange
mental freaks exist in some families. You
perhaps know people who are built the
wrong way. / used to know Lewiston
family of misers, extremely narrow and
stingy, and yet would take no care of
the hay in the field or the cattle in the
stall We had to sort of learn human
nature. Get first at the habits of the
man whose wealth you are seeking to
find. It's the best clew you have.
GT 30 Al r
rious case in Massachusetts. 1t was
twenty years ago. A wealthy man was
stricken with paralysis. He was about
to deposit about $29, 900 in money and
bonds when he was stricken down. The
heirs were wild. He couldn't recall a
thing. All that was known was that he
was found sitting on the front hall stairs,
bereft of mind and speech. We couldn't
make anything out of him. He had no
money. We made hunt at random over
the house, through the barns and stables.
We about made up our mind that he had
been robbed. We stopped the furniture
breaking and cushion pricking business
and were hesitating whether or not to
make arrests or to search for some syste-
matte clew. For my part, as remember,
was confident he had been robbed,
sis, and was not sure that some attack
from a robber had not precipitated the
paralysis. We sought the doctors and
examined the mans person. A long
black and blue mark was on his hip;
another was on his forehead. A silver
of blue-painted wood was on his cloth
ing. We started out to hunt. We
tried the pump, and the clothes-reel, and
everything else. inally, down in the
barn cellar among boxes and barrels
! came across an old dump-cart top.
Here's the artIcIe, said l. W. e,....sz
the thing out into the light, and there
in pile of manure we found the packet
of money and bonds where the paraly-
tic had fallen and where the packet had
slipped from his pocket.
''My partner and | divided 50, 900 be-
tween us that evening.
"a sailor will almost always hide his
money about him. Irish women always
sew bills into their petticoats. 1 once
went into New Hamp hire to hunt for
the money of a retired sea captain who
died very suddenly. He had been a
queer sort of man, very taciturn and al
ways taking trips out of town after his
money. He wasn't a miserly man, and
l concluded that he hadn't buried it.
He slept in no one particular place. and
so l was pretty sure that there was no
place in the house where he felt better
contented than another. So / said:
Bring his Clothes We went over
them. The binding of one of them was
wide, and his wife said, as l tore it off,
'He always sewed his clothes up himself.
He was handy as a woman with needle.
Queer She added, why, he always
wanted to wear that suit to the last.
Poor dearr and she dropped tear. In
the meantime had pulled out an oiled
silk packet, holding six bonds for 81, 900
each, and we found eighteen more in
the same suit. His trips to town meant
something, you see.
nOf course there are men who bury
money. Such men always have its hid
inr-place marked off, and, ten to one,
they want it buried where they can see,
as sooR as they can see anything in the
morning, that some thief has not discov-
cred its hiding place in the night and
made off with 1t. You can put it down
that men who conceal money like to have
it as near at hand as possible. l have
known money to be concealed In the
clock in the bedroom, and so arranged
that no one could touch the clock with
out alarming the household. If a man
who hides his money has any special
idiosyncrasy it is safe to look it up. The
more ignorant and crafty your man, the
safer to go by his crankiness.
E'What sort of places have you known
of money being hiddenF'
80, e~erywherel In the upholstery
and bedding, under carpets, behind the
door casing, between partitions, or be-
hind the wall paper, in the old family
Bibles, behind mirrors, nailed to the
walls, in false ceilings, in false bottomed
drawers, in clocks, stoves, Innings of old
hats, steam radiators (disused), bottles
marked poison canes, shoes, vest and
coat Innings, tomato cans, ea-canisters,
powder-h horns, old stocking-feet and in
every other conceivable place.
''lhe ways of the covetous are many
and their tricks are dark and peculiar"
-LeUiS'og (Ne.) Journal.