Year-old Lost and Found Healthy

Chief Alvin R. Randall of the University Police celebrated a modest birthday yesterday--that of the Lest and Found Bureau he operates. The bureau is a year old, and Chief Randall explained, as he unwrapped a misplaced checkbook that had been forwarded to his office, the business has been brisk, rewarding, and full of chuckles.

Previous to last February, all items discovered on University property were handed over to the Caretaking Department. It was then up to the student to drop in at Mr. Seward's office two or three times a year and check up on the books, clothing, and sundry other items that he had misplaced throughout the year.

Chief Randall's office, however, aims to please, No efforts are spared in tracking down the owner of mislaid merchandise who is then notified of his carelessness through a polite postcard.

At present, Randall's office is packed with some 30-odd coats and jackets, 150 assorted books, rubbers, umbrellss, ladies' compacts, silk stockings, briefcases, and a lot of other things you wouldn't expect people to walk off and forget.

"Students, janitors, and maids bring in about ten articles a day," Chief Randall explained. "We give them a receipt and if small articles aren't claimed in 60 days, we give them back to the finder." Also more than 60 unclaimed coats and jackets have been passed on to Phillips Brooks House in the last year.

Although Chief Randall cannot understand why so many student never show up for their lost and found articles, there are a few exceptions he can excuse. One of these involves the discovery, early one spring morning, of a warm blanket and four cold bottles of beer under a blooming elm tree in the Yard. Although diligently catalogued in the lost and found file, neither the beer nor the blanket was ever called for. Apparently pride rideth before a call.