News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-04-08
RUNAWAY MILK CANS.
How They Niysterfously Disappear ana ms
MysteriOusly Reappear.
[From the New York Times

From the New York Times.l
Milk cans and horses have at least one
point in common. Both will run away
at times. There is a man in Jersey City
who makes his living by chasing and
capturing runaway milk cans, and very
exciting chases he has sometimes. Every
one knows or ought to know that four
fifths of the milk supply of New York
City comes to it by way OF jersey Guy
The Erie road brings in most OF It,
Farmers own the 40-quart cans IN which
it is transported, and those cans are
costly articles. They don't want to and
can't afford to lose them. So they pay
W. P. Haviland 81 year each to look
after their cans That is, good many
of them do, and the Erie Railroad also
allows him a certain sum annually. rive
or six hundred milk cans will sometimes
go astray in single week IN the busy
season. Where do they go to? Ask the
most estute detective at the Police Head
quarters and he would be baffled and
wouldn't know how to go to work to
catch the runaways. Ask Mr.. Haviland
and he would stroke that long grey beard
of his, take off his soft SLOUGH hat, run
his hand through his long gray locks,
and say:
'NIy boy, it's taken me the best part
of 20 years to find out the tricks of milk
cans l get my living by knowing how
to catch the runaways. Do you suppose
I'm going to tell my secret? Oh, no, L
can't afford to do that, but if you've
lost any milk cans I'll bet you $40 to So
pll find 'em for you in a weeks time"
Al, ] &c
and goes on finding the stray milk cans.
and the milk producers wouldn't know
how to get oh,Ei.hout him. Word came
to him from q orange County Farmer a
short time - ffsai-ne had lost 20 new
milk cans that ne had used but twice.
Mr.. Haviland came over to this city with
his team and started on an exploring
tour. He unearthed after two days
search 10 of these cans in the cellar of
tenement house in Harlem near Second
avenue. How they got there neither he
nor any one about there knew. At least
that is what the people in the tenement
pretended. The twentieth can hasn't
been found yet, and probably never will
be. A singular thing in connection with
the case is that there isn't a milk store
within two blocks of the place where
the cans were found, and another singu-
lar fact is that the cans were originally
left at half dozen different stores in
localities as far as mile and half part.
How some smart thieves managed to get
10 out of the 20 together is a mystery to
members of the Milk Exchange, to MIR.
HavIland, and to the good Orange
County farmer who owned them.
Milk cans go regularly to two or three
thousand stores and owners of milk
routes in this city and Brooklyn. These
people are responsible only morally for
their return, and while most of them are
honest and try to keep their cans they
will lose one or two occasionally, for
there seems to be an organized gang of
milk can thieves in both cities. The
Jersey City hunter for this queer game
seems to have got an mixing of their
habits and their haunts At all events
he finds milk cans in New-Yor nearly
every day in the year, and in localities
ranging from near the Battery on the
west side up to the Harlem River on
both sides of town. Saloons are fire.
quently made places of custody for them,
and as stowaways they are found in eel
and sometimes in sleeping rooms in ten
ement houses. How they get there Mr..
Haviland doesn't undertake to find out,
as he is satisfied if he can get the cans.
Sometimes, too, he finds them in cellars
and closets, in storerooms, and in
grocery and milk stores. It is by &C
cident or through the carelessness of
clerks that the cans get into such places,
Of course. Proprietors are too honest to
put them there. At least they say SO.
The lumber yards over on Tenth and
Eleventh avenues are favorite spots for
runaway cans to hide in apparently,
and the corporation yard up near Ganse
volns shelters the run
pro7ee~ AIrgs paid to the city
custodian