The Cotton Factory Times. — 1899-07-07 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

SOME INTERESTING FINDS.  The rapacity of the Treasury in respect to overriding the claims to treasure-trove pot forward by poor but indifferently honest folk received striking exemplification late in May, 1897, when £79 14s. all in silver coins, of which the latest date was 1872, was discovered in a pail buried under the staircase of a house occupied several years ago by a miser in Tenter Court, Bethnal Green. On the discovery being made known about a hundred Poles living in the neighbourhood promptly chimed the money as theirs, and the finder had to beat off the crowd that swarmed about him with a spade, especially one lady, bent upon obtaining nine points of the law in her favour by taking possession of the find, who rushed at him like a "tiger from the Zoo." Notwithstanding the effort of the noble one hundred, the Treasury got the money, to accumulate which the miser deprived himself of food and clothing, and allowed the parish to bury him. About the same time the Crown came in for a nice little haul found at Balcombe, near Crawley, while some labourers were laying out a lawn. In this instance the treasure consisted of a metal vessel containing twelve gold and 242 silver coins of Edward lll.'s reign and sonic brooches. The vessel in shape was like a wine flagon, and with its contents weighed about 71bs. Needless to say, this haul was of considerable value. Early in DM the ceiling of an old house in the village of Whitchurch fell in, and the Treasury was enriched to the amount of twentyeight silver coins of the reigns of Elizabeth, James L, and Charles I. They were nearly all in a good stale of preservation, and the oldest was over 300 years old. During the previous year, however, the Crown came in for a regular windfall when a buckskin bag full of ancient coins was discovered at Crediton Church by some workmen engaged in removing the ceiling. In this instance the claimants numbered four, and comprised the lord of the manor, the church governors, the person who found the treasure, and the Treasury, who seized it all, but eventually returned the greater number to the governors, who put the coins up to auction with gratifying results; for although their condition was not of the beat and they were of silver, they numbered 1,885, and were of the reigns of Edward IV., Philip and Mary, Elizabeth, and the Stuarts. One of the most peculiar instances of treasure-trove happened in Glasgow a year or so ago. The police were examining a shop in High-street, Glasgow, for some stolen goods, and after digging for four hours they came across an iron box containing 169 silver watches, several of which were " wanted." Watches, however, have a remarkable habit of turning up in strange places, as witness those which were found the other day in a hedge in the neighbourhood of Epsom, where they had been thrown by some procrastinator whose theft of time had resulted in the police getting to closer quarters than be relished. It was in a similar hiding-place near Llanelly that a find of gold occurred a couple of years ago which was supposed to form a portion of the booty, amounting to £2OO, taken from the body of a man murdered at the spot years before.