3-074-614 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Lost Property Office, Metropolitan Police Department, Scotland-Yard, 1883. 'We now...visit the Lost Property Office, to which many respectable gentlemen and ladies, among our London readers, may have had occasion to apply for the chance of recovering something lost in a cab or omnibus, a "metropolitan hackney-carriage" or "metropolitan stage-carriage." The driver or conductor of such a vehicle is obliged, under penalty of fine or imprisonment, to deposit here within twenty-four hours, any property that he finds in it. Property unclaimed after three months is sold on the public account; but the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police has power, at his discretion, to grant a reward to the finder, or to the driver or conductor of the carriage'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.