Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-07-31
Miseellaneurts 8sading.
THE WORLDS SIZE.
It Seems a Very Small PIace-Some-
finoee

always engaging topic-the smallness
of the world.
while visiting the Pan-American
exposition 4 few years ago." contribu-
ted a New Orleans lady, II lost in
restaurant one evening chatelaine
bag containing most Of my own jew
elry and a diamond ornament, highly
priced because it was my husbands
wedding gift, belonging to my daugh-
ter. Naturally I was in a great state
of panic and depression.
But on returning to our hotel L
bellman brought me the card of a
lady of whom 1 had never heard.
With my loss uppermost in my mind,
however, 1 hurried down to the re-
ception room to meet her, found her
very charming woman, but she was
thousand times more charming in
my view of course because she had
my missing bag in her hands.
"'You had missed this?' was her.
first question, and then she saw how
terribly worried had been over the
loss and how correspOndingly reliev-
ed 1 was over the sight of the bag.
She handed the bag to me, everything
intact, jewels. money and all.
1T appeared that she had taken
dinner at the same table at the res
taurant at which my daughter and L
had sat-having succeeded us at that
table-and she had accidentally kick
ed the dropped bag with her foot. In
order to seek something with which
to identify the owner she had, of
course, opened the bag, had found
some recent letters addressed to me,
and had hurried around to the hotel
at once to restore the bag to me.
"She was plainly a woman of re-
finement and wealth and was leaving
the city with her husband that night.
Before she went I sent to her hotel
the incest box of orchids that could
be found in the city.
THE world still would be of its
customary largeness if the story end
ed there. But two years later my
daughter and I were visiting a rug
bazaar in Constantinople. We were
dawdling over a heap of tapestries
when I chanced to see, projecting
from beneath a nearby pile Of small
rugs, a gold chain bag. Without being
observed by any Of the shopmen l
picked the bag up and showed it to-
my daughter. We were undecided
what to do with it, but we were Of a
single mind as to one point, and that
was that we should not surrender the
bag to the proprietor of the rug ba
zaar. A number of experiences that
we had had throughout Turkey, and
especially in Constantinople, had not
served to give us the best impression
as to the honesty of the Turkish
tradespeople.
80 we hurried from the bazaar,
summoned a conveyance and drove
about while we considered what we
should do with the gold bag. 1 look
ed into the bag to see if it might con-
tain a card or other means of placing
it's owner, but the bag held nothing
of the sort. 1t contained number Of
singularly artistic and valuable dia-
mond ornaments, a bracelet of the
most superb sapphires 1 had ever seen
and a large sum in Turkish bank
notes AS we drove about, leaving
our route to the will of the driver of
the carriage, we passed the office of
the Constantinople police. and that
decided us as to what we should do
with the bag. We had little knowl-
edge as to the efficiency or honesty of
the Constantinople police, but we de-
cided, as the men say, to take a
chance.
1.-The police official in charge, we
found, was very civil man who
spoke English we'll. He took the bag
from us and commended our judg-
ment in not leaving it with the pro-
prietor of the rug bazaar.
I'VE were about to leave Constan-
tinople, and the police official took
the name of our Paris bankers and
told us that he would return the gold
bag, with all it's contents, to us in
Paris should he be unable to find the
bags owner within a stated time.
Also he took our address in Constan-
tinople, so that he would be able to
notify us in case he found the owner
of the bag Immediately before our
leaving. We were a bit dubious as to
these terms, but as we had taken the
chance we had no other choice but
to accede to them.
I'VE returned to the rug bazaar
and remained there for a couple of
hours. When we returned to our no.
tel the charming woman who had
found my jewelry at the Pan-Ameri-
can exposition two years before was
in the hotels reception room awaiting
u.s. l was delighted 10 see her, but /
could not connect her with the owner
ship of the gold bag until she spoke.
- am too grateful to wish to ap-
pear axiomatic,' was her first greeting,
but one good turn surely does deserve
another does it not?'
And she held up the gold bag I
had found. She had driven to our
hotel straight from the office of the
police chief, to whom she had report
ed the loss He had given her the bag
upon her naming it's contents, and he
also had given her the name of the
bags finder. On the following day
we met her husband and we Journey
ed to Paris together. Since the ter
minatiOn of that incident l have had a
very poor opinion of the worlds size.
"A few years ago l was seated one
evening on the lanai, or pOrticO, Of a
hotel in Honolulu, chatting with our
manager out there" said a Boston man
in the Oriental shipping trade, when
a man strolled along the porch whose
face was very familiar to me. though
could not possibly place him. He took
a seat at a table close to ours. and
noticed that he eyed me as if he too
found my countenance a familiar one.
Our Honolulu manager spent most