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Show LEFT BEHIND AT THE HOTEL. 8oro the Matters Overlooked by Harried Har-ried and Forgetful Travelers. Every hotel in New York lias a storeroom store-room for valuable articles left behind bv guests. In such hotels as the Astor, the rifth Avenue, the Sinclair, the Hoffman and hotel? further up town, a set of hooks is kept in which are jotted down descriptions c-f the goods forgotten by absent minded and hurried ones. Whero the hotel does a vast amount of transient business it is sometime difficult to arrange ar-range the goods for future identification. In such cases tho integrity of servants must be the guarantee, and this is strictly strict-ly relied upon. Immediately after the rooms aro vacated the chambermaid takes temporary possession, fcihe gathers gath-ers up the goods left behind by the last occupant and hands them over to the clerk. He looks on the register and tags the packages aud articles with the name of the guest and the number of the room he occupied on the day of departure. All these notes are then transcribed into the books kept for such business. If tho guest is well known at the hotel and the articles found after his departure are extremely valuable, he is immediately notified und requested to identify the property. Otherwise the goods are kept until his next visit. "We've got a toothbrush and a pair of shoes of yours here. Send 'cm up? is the greeting that some out of town patron of the house receives. "You left a pair of trousers behind last time," is hurled at another. If there is a woman in the case tho housekeeper is notified from the desk when the husband registers, and pretty soon the housekeeper knocks on the door of tho couple's apartment, and the wife is informed that on her last visit she forgot her bustle, or a bunch of hair, or a chemise, or a petticoat. The game of a woman's lingerie is rung, for women are quite as forgetful as men. The housekeeper house-keeper usually visits the room with the missing articles, and hands them over on tho spot. There is scarcely a hotel in New York that couldn't start an umbrella shop. Everybody seems to forget an umbrella. Go to any hotel in town and tell the proprietor pro-prietor that you thoughtlessly left one behind while at the hotel. He will summon sum-mon the porter and direct him to take out the lost umbrellas. Pretty soon the porter is heading for you, staggering under a great load of umbrellas. There are cotton ones, ginghams, and articles of the finest silk, with gold and silver handles. No particular or formal oath is necessary to identify an umbrella. The proprietor does not and cannot demur. de-mur. If he kept strict account of all the umbrellas left in his establishment his bookkeepers wouldn't have anything else to do. An old customer told Landlord Ashman, of tho Sinclair house, the other night in tho rush time that he had forgotten for-gotten his umbrella a few nights before, and had left it in the dining room. Mr. Ashman thereupon ordered the porter to bring out the lost umbrellas. There was a handcart load of them. It is a particularly interesting fact that many diamond rings are left behind by guests. They are usually found on the washstands. The ladies are the chief delinquents in this respect. Before washing wash-ing their hands they pull off their rings and lay them on the washstand. In the hurry to get to the dining room preparatory prepara-tory to leaving on the next train, the rings are frequently forgotten. Sometimes Some-times they are very valuable. There have been frequent instances where whole boxes of jewels have been forgotten. forgot-ten. These invariably find their way to the clerk's desk, and the owners are soon found. Watches innumerable are found under pillows, having been put there by guests on retiring and overlooked in the rush of the morning. Many pocketbooks, some of them substantially lined with greenbacks, are forgotten, often no doubt to the embarrassment of tho owner. It is not considered by well regulated minds to be first chop comfort to find yourself tearing away from town on a New York Central or a Pennsylvania flyer without a copper. But telegraph, if tlie operator will trust you, and the wallet will be hurried after you either by express or registered mail. Then there are gold pencils, gloves, shoes, hats, coats, overcoats, eyeglasses, spirit lamps, shirt studs, powder boxes and hand glasses. One enterprising citizen citi-zen forgot his gripsack and everything in it the other night Another left without with-out a valuable set of surgical instruments. instru-ments. Thoro are more toothbrushes forgotten in New York hotels in a week than any shop in New York can replace on tho instant. Slippers, cuffs and collars col-lars enough to start a haberdasher's shop, ladies' stockings of , silk and all other textures, night dresses of lace and plain, canes, work " baskets, trusses, shawls, bootjacks, rubbor coats, bracelets, opera glasses, ladies' hats, entiro suits of clothes, ladies' cloaks, fur sacks, tans, Bibles, sermons, dress waists, garters, corsets, earrings these and hundreds of other articles make up the year's collection col-lection in tho big hotels of New York. When the owner is not found the goods are usually kept a year. . No hotel clerk in town seems to know what becomes of them after that. New York Sun. |