The pick-ups, the findings, from underground or under-sea, or in hidden places above ground, comprise a strange medley of the odd and the choice, appealing to the tastes or the pockets of persons filling widely diverse positions in society.

The drains and sewers, for instance: can a more lowly and uncomfortable treasure-house than these be found? Rat-killing by dogs, in an inclosed space surrounded by the roughest of roughs, is a savage exhibition unfortunately not yet quite died out from amongst us. The exhibiters purchase the live rats at so much per dozen from men who grope along the filthy sewers in search of them; and in Paris especially, dead rats are brought up from the same unseemly regions, and placed in the hands of skinners and tanners, who manage to get out of them strong and good-looking pieces of leather suitable for the manufacture of gloves. The great changes made in recent years in London by the extensive Main Drainage Works have deprived the sewer-grubbers of much of their chance; but in the old sewers the pick-ups were often strange enough. Dead infants, a dead seal, cats and dogs both alive and dead, spoons, tobacco-boxes, children's playthings, bad half-crowns and shillings, sets of false teeth, washing-bowls, mops, human heads and limbs which had been thus disposed of by body-snatchers or by anatomical and medical students—all were met with by the sewer-flushers. One party of these strangely employed men came on a certain occasion to a spot where the brickwork between the sewer and a beer-cellar had broken through. What did they do? They helped themselves.

On a former occasion, we presented a few illustrations of the curious operation of the law concerning Treasure-trove, the rights and the wrongs of ownership connected with property picked up from the ground or from a small depth below the surface. Among the examples cited was one relating to the finding of treasure near Stanmore in Middlesex, and another connected with the locality of Mountfield in Sussex. Let us present a few jottings of similar pick-ups in more recent years.

A labourer, digging a drain in a farm on the estate of the late Lord Palmerston, found a golden torque or torgue, an ancient British necklace. It was ascertained that the original grant of the estate gave to the grantee, as lord of the manor, a right to all treasure-trove found therein; the veteran statesman established his claim, but took care that the finder should not go unrewarded. A ploughman, working near Horndean in Hants, found more than a hundred old silver coins in an earthen jar under the surface of the ground; the lord of the manor gave to the finder the intrinsic value of the coins as mere silver, and then had to fight a battle with the Crown as to who ought to possess the coins themselves. One find near Highgate was very remarkable, on account of the strange manner in which the veritable owner made his appearance. Labourers, grubbing up a tree in a field, found two jars containing nearly four hundred sovereigns; they divided the money amongst themselves, and were then taken aback by the lord of the manor claiming it. Before this claim could be investigated, a tradesman came forward and stated that one night, under a temporary delusion, he had gone out and buried the money; when he awoke, and for some time afterwards, he tried in vain to recollect the locality he had selected, and only obtained a clue when he heard a rumour of the finding of four hundred sovereigns. He was able to bring forward sufficient evidence in support of his singular story; and his claim was admitted.

On different occasions in 1864 the Crown put in claims for treasure-trove—a gold coin found at Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire; sixty-two gold coins found in an earthen jar in a field at Stockerston, Leicestershire; no less than six thousand silver pennies of the time of Henry III. found at Eccles near Manchester; and seven hundred and sixty silver coins earthed up near Newark. The next following year gave the Crown a claim to a hundred and eighty silver coins of the reigns of Mary, Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I., found at Grantham; and to a gold cross and chain brought to light at Castle Bailey, Clare, in Suffolk. The years 1866 and 1867 were marked, among other instances, by the finding of nearly seven thousand small gold and silver coins at Highbury, near London; eighty guineas concealed in the wall of an old house at East Parley, near Christchurch, Hants; and two hundred and sixty old silver coins in a house at Lichfield. In other years there were nine hundred silver coins found at Cumberford in Staffordshire; and eleven rose nobles found in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. These several instances of treasure-trove were settled in various ways. Some of the findings were returned by the Crown to the finders; some were sold to the British Museum, in a manner to place an honorarium in the finder's pocket; some were presented to museums, and the money value given to the finders; some are retained by the Crown, as antiquarian curiosities; while one has been handed over to the descendants of a former owner.

Seven or eight years ago two labouring men found a very ancient gold chain, which they sold to a dealer who knew the value better than they did; the unlucky-lucky men fared badly in this instance, seeing that they were punished for selling the 'find' without giving notice to the authorities—rather hard lines for rustics, who are not likely to know much about the law of treasure-trove. In another case a poor man found a pair of ancient Irish silver bracelets; he sold them as old silver to a silversmith, who melted them down at once—to the great regret of an antiquary, who would have given much more than their intrinsic value for such relics of former days. During the multifarious diggings which have been going on for some years in and near Cannon Street and its neighbourhood for the formation of new streets and the construction of large commercial buildings, the workmen lighted upon twenty-nine guineas and twenty shillings nearly two centuries old; the men got into trouble because they did not voluntarily give them up. On one occasion when the fusty and musty contents of a rag-dealer's heap were being overhauled, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Houndsditch, a diamond ring was espied. A contest arose as to who should possess it: a woman engaged in sorting the rags claimed it because she had found it; the rag-dealer disputed her claim; a pawnbroker who said he had advanced money on the ring insisted on his prior right; a dealer in old clothes who had sold a garment for that money, and one or two other persons of somewhat doubtful antecedents—all came forward to shew that, for some reason or other, the diamond ring ought to be considered theirs. Whether the crown waived its claim, we are not certain; but a magistrate eventually gave a decision in favour of the rag-sorter.

Bank-notes, as well as coins, jewellery, and articles in the precious metals, sometimes make their appearance among the findings. A bundle of notes was one day picked up outside the counter of a retail shop: the finder claimed them because he was the finder; while the shopkeeper claimed them because it was on his premises that the notes had been dropped. The real owner, whoever he may have been, did not come forward, and the law decided in favour of the finder. But a much more remarkable case occurred two or three years ago. A packet containing no less than ten thousand pounds' worth of bank-notes was picked up from the pavement in one of the busy streets near the Bank of England; ten notes of one thousand pounds each. A young City clerk picked up and pocketed the treasure. A friend advised him, on consultation, to keep the notes until the following day, when a handsome reward would possibly be offered by the luckless person who had inadvertently dropped the notes. A firm of solicitors, in the names of the real owners, speedily offered one hundred pounds to the finder. The judicious friend overshot the mark here; he stipulated that he should have nearly half the sum of one hundred pounds as his reward for the advice given; and at the same time coaxed sixty pounds out of the owners by a fabricated story concerning himself, the finder, and the finding. A sheriff court had to decide the matter, and ordered the 'friend' to return part, at anyrate, of the money he had received.

A queer story has lately found its way into the newspapers, not exactly touching on the discovery of treasure, but on a concealment which might possibly lead to discovery if this or that were to occur. One Adolfo de Garcilano (so runs the story), a prisoner in Madrid, and lately a colonel in the Carlist army, was instructed by Don Carlos to take six million pesetas (about one franc each) in English securities and Spanish notes to London, inclosed in an iron box. This treasure he was to bury in the earth in a particular locality, make a sketch of the exact spot, and return to Spain. He was next captured by the Alfonsists, thrust into prison, and told that he would not be set free except on the payment of a large sum of money by way of ransom. Thereupon he wrote to some one in England or Scotland, asking for the transmission of a sufficient sum of money; this done, the secret of the buried treasure would be communicated to the liberal ransomer, who was to retain one-third of it as a grateful reward. If there had been only one such letter, some person might possibly have been victimised; but there were more than one, to different quarters, each requesting the money to be sent to a third party at an address named. We may hereby form a tolerably true estimate of Don Adolfo de Garcilano.

Undoubtedly the most interesting recent discoveries of small but valuable works in the precious metals are those due to Dr Schliemann. ArchÆologists have long recognised the probability that buried beneath some of the ancient cities of the world, there are not only architectural and sculptured fragments of much historical importance still remaining to be discovered, but also jewels and other treasures which have not seen the light for decades of centuries. Nineveh, Babylon, Jerusalem, the more ancient parts of Rome, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Egypt, Cyprus, the site of the famous Troy, and those of the once important cities of Asia Minor—all may perchance have something to shew which the present age would be prepared to welcome and appreciate. Concerning Jerusalem, a conjecture has been brought forward of a remarkable kind. After the rebuilding of the second Temple, there were five occasions on which precious metals, treasures, and artistic ornaments might have been concealed by the priests or servitors of the sacred edifice—namely, during the abstraction and sale of the temple furniture by the apostate high-priest Menelaus; at the plunder and defilement of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes; during the plunder by Crassus; during that by Sabinus; and at the total destruction by the Romans. On one or more of these occasions, supposing the Jewish priests and servitors should have placed valuables in the Temple, the place of concealment may not have been made known to others, and the secret may have been carried with the priests to the grave. Various facts have been adduced in support of this surmise, sufficient to whet the curiosity of men who would value such treasures, not for their intrinsic worth as precious metals or precious stones, but for their historical and ecclesiastical connection with momentous events nearly two thousand years ago.

Dr Schliemann, whose name we have just mentioned, when making researches among mounds and heaps of rubbish at or near the supposed site of Troy in Asia Minor, has lighted upon the foundations of cities which he supposes to have been more ancient even than the Iliad.

But the discoveries more immediately connected with our present subject are those which Dr Schliemann has since made in Greece. With the permission of the king he made excavations near MycenÆ, on the site of what is believed to be one of the most ancient cities in that classic land—far more ancient than the renowned Athens. In treasuries and tombs, which had not seen the light for an untold number of centuries, he has disinterred beautifully painted vases, whole or in fragments; terra-cotta statuettes and busts of Juno, horses' heads, lions, rams, elephants; knives and keys of iron and bronze; fragments of lyres, flutes, and crystal vases. But most striking of all is the large quantity of gold vessels and ornaments, undoubtedly of precious metal, and in many instances artistically wrought. Sceptres, bracelets, girdles, necklaces, rings, vases, caps, &c. in plenty. One of the Doctor's greatest triumphs was the unearthing of two vases of solid gold, fourteen centimÈtres (about six inches) high, richly ornamented. Many of these relics, as well as many inscriptions and bas-reliefs on extremely ancient blocks of masonry, have excited the curiosity of classical archÆologists in a high degree. Their thoughts go back to the epics and dramas which treat of Agamemnon king of MycenÆ; of the expedition to Troy; of Clytemnestra, Electra, Ægisthus, Orestes; of the stories of some of the Greek plays by Euripides, Sophocles, and Æschylus. They think of these personages and these events; and they lean strongly to the belief that the disinterred ancient city near MycenÆ, and some of the treasures brought to light by Dr Schliemann, may be veritable tokens of the days of Agamemnon. Some of the articles found were in triangular cells, which he thinks may have been treasuries or depositories for treasure and valuables. But his principal 'finds' of wrought gold were in chambers which were probably the tombs of Agamemnon, Cassandra, and Eurymedon. The vases, the cups, the diadems, the signet rings, were mostly found in these tombs (if tombs they were); as likewise were the bones of a man and a woman covered with ornaments of pure gold. In short, the discoveries have been of a most unusual, interesting, and valuable kind, well calculated to attract the attention of the learned in Europe, whether learned in classical history or in artistic archÆology.

Of discovering or recovering of treasures lying beneath the waves of the ocean, we do not intend to treat here. The reader will find some curious notices on the subject in the article already referred to; also in 'Submarine Treasure Ventures' (May 1, 1869); and in 'The Story of La Lutine' (July 8, 1876).