"Lost" Gems Are Recovered

1916

Package of Valuables Turns Up in St. Paul Postoffice.

ST. PAUL, Minnesota — A few days ago a St. Paul woman gave a Chicago hotel clerk an envelope containing jewels valued at $1,500, $200 in currency and a $50 draft to be placed in the hotel safe over night. The contents of the envelope have now been returned to the woman by Otto Raths, St. Paul postmaster.

When the valuables were called for at the Chicago hotel they could not be found. The clerk to whom they had been given had started on a two-weeks vacation. The woman stormed at the hotel management but didn't get any trace of her valuables. When she asked for her bill she found on it an item for "postage 4 cents."

The clerk had affixed the stamps and the valuables had been sent to St. Paul. The envelope was badly torn on its arrival here and postal clerks puzzled over the strange manner of shipping valuables until the woman appeared, claimed the shipment and explained its cause. Why they were sent here has not been explained.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 11.