On the night of the
14th of this month Mr William Wood, of Stanningley, near Bradford,
left Leeds in a third-class carriage on the Leeds, Bradford and
Halifax junction railway. He had with him a small box, containing
24 watches, valued altogether at about 60/. The box was tied up
in a red handkerchief.
Mr Wood got out of the
train at the Stanningley station, but his box of watches had either
vanished before he arrived there or else was left in the carriage.
Some days afterwards a printed handbill was circulated in which
a reward of 5/.was offered for the restoration of the missing property,
which was stated to have been left in a third-class carriage of
the train by which the owner travelled, a woman having given information
that she saw a man of indifferent charcter, living at Pudsey, carrying
the lost box away from the station, his house was visited and searched
by the police, but without finding any trace of the watches, and
nothing was heard of the property until Friday morning last, when
the box and red handkerchief, enclosed in brown paper, were found
in one of the waiting rooms at the Great Northern Railway Station,
Bradford.
The parcel had upon
it the direction: "Mr Wood, watch dealer, Stanningley, going
to Leeds." On the box being opened the only thing found inside
was a slip of white paper, with writing upon it, of which the following
is a verbatim et literatim* copy:-
"i have sent
box back and think on and keep better stuf when tha gets some more
don't blame that Pudsey man becase he hasent got them, and twoman
says that she saw him have a black box back on him. She coudent
due so wen it were teed up in neecloth on it wor red. if i was man
i would reight it we him. But thy watches will ner see em agean
i nobbit gat 7 Pand for lot and tha mun think the sen weel of tha
goten box." |