Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1914-08-04
MUCH BAGGAGE is
SOLD BY HOTELS
Personal Effects Left Unopened
Are Knocked Down to the
Highest Bidder.


ed, says the New York Times.
This IS the day set for the sale OF
hotel baggage that has been accumu-
lating in trunk rooms for the last six
months or more, and for several days
vans have been oarting away various
boxes and such things as pass under
the head of travellers luggage to an
| uptown auction room.
During the last few days the base
meuts of at least a dozen New York
hotels have been carefully gone over,
| and trunks and bags that had been in
storage at least six months after their
owners had quit the hotel without the
formality of saying goodbye to the
| cashier were hauled out and sent to
| the place of sale, until the result in
dicated that something like 500 per-
sons had skipped their bills at the
dozen hotels interested during the last
six months. Under their names on the
ledgers are debts ranging from $3.50
for a nights lodging to several hun
dred dollars for suites and weeks of
board or checks cashed that came
back marked mo funds Some of the
baggage in the auction room is of
merely the unclaimed" variety-own-
ers really forget it-but 1t makes a
comparatively small item.
In the pile that was being sorted
out yesterday at the auction room
We're handsome trunks, fine leather
suit cases, cases apparently contain
ing musical instruments, others that
might hold typewriters, a Persian
lamb coat and handsome overcoats,
together with rough wooden boxes and
even a little tin box. 1t is condition
of sale that no intending purchaser
shall handle any of the packages be-
fore or open any on the premises after
buying. The whole sale is blind.
Whoever pays the highest price has
his purchase taken away and must
gloat or mourn over it somewhere
else.
1.-The thing is absolutely a gamble
for the purchaser" said Floyd Grant,
the auctioneer. zone is likely to get
something really worth while or TO
have paid a dozen or more times what
the article is worth. Verify, in this
you cannot trust to appearances. We
do not know what is in anything.
"At the last sale there was a little
box that presumably was jewel case,
whose owner had left it behind when
she left the hotel an unpaid bill OF
$3.50. When the box was put up a
laugh went round. The first bid was
81. The next was So. Mounting up
by half dollars, the bid was finally 81,
from a man named O'Neill. He sold
INT in a
box for S175.
"In the same lot was a big ward
robe trunk that was knocked down to
an East Side merchant for 81. I'M
mediately he repented of his bargain,
and wanted to assure us that he had
bid only $3.50. / held him to his bid.
The trunk seemed empty. But the
next day a friend of his came up to
see me and reported that the mer-
chant, upon opening the trunk, had,
found therein woman's dress.
Pinned in one sleeve of the garment
was a gold bracelet containing dia-
mond, which the buyer Immediately
sold for $3.50.
"Of course hotel people have been
sued after sales more than once. I'm
der the law. as it is at present, if
baggage has not been redeemed by
the payment of hotel bill six months
after it is due, the hotel has the right
to sell. But / can recall a case that
happened several years ago, when an
old chest came to us, and was sold at
auction. Hardly had 1t gone, when
two Irish women rushed in and
showed a receipt for s37 which they
had just paid the management of the
old Hotel Rossmore, from which the
chest was sent to us. The chest was
proved to have contained several hun
dred dollars worth of old Irish lace,
and a mistake had been made. 1t cost
the management of the hotel $500.
"a man paid SIT for a trunk that
looked as if it might really contain
something valuable, and found when
he opened il that it contained moth
ing but coal.
Occasionally the sale of a trunk
reveals that the man who skipped the
hotel was a thief by trade.
81 remember another trunk which
down town merchant bid in at ST, and
then asserted he had bid only $3.50.
An Irishman Immediately bid 81, and
knocked it down to him. He came up
to me the next day.
az thought when / opened the trunk
and found in the tray a couple OF
tennis rackets, a pair of boxing gloves
and two sweaters that I had bought
the baggage of some college boy he
said, but when took out the tray and
found four bolts of new silk, five sofa
pillows and six Turkish rugs, l knew
i had not
''As always investigate a case like
that, l called up the manager of the
Holland house, from which the trunk
had come. After an investigation he
told me that the trunk had been left
there two years before by a dapper-
looking man, who had ordered the
trunk sent to the store room immedi-
ately upon arrival. After two days he
had disappeared. Perhaps somebody
IL.