so, then he may retain it as his own,
meanwhile his right as finder is perfect as against all others. Should
the true owner appear, whatever right the finder may have against him
for recompense for the care and expense in keeping and preserving the
property, his status as finder does not give him any lien unless the
owner has offered a reward to whoever will restore the property. To
this extent a lien thereon is thereby created.

The statutes generally provide what a person must do who has found
lost property. Suppose a person appears who claims to be the owner of
the thing found, what shall the finder do in the way of submitting it
to his inspection? In one of the recent cases the court decided that
it was a question of fact and not of law whether the finder of lost
property had given a fair and reasonable opportunity for its
identification before restoring it, and whether the claimant should
have been given an opportunity to inspect it in order to decide
whether it belonged to him.

The finder does not take title to every article found and out of the
possession of its true owner. To have even a qualified ownership the
thing must be lost, and this does not happen unless possession has
been lost casually and involuntarily so that the mind has no recourse
to the event. A thing voluntarily laid down and forgotten is not lost
within the meaning of the rule giving the finder title to lost
property; and the owner of a shop, bank or other place where the thing
has been left is the proper custodian rather than the person who was
the discoverer.

If a lost article is found on the surface of the ground, or the floor
of a shop, in the public parlor of a hotel, or near a table at an
open-air place of amusement, or in the car of a railroad it becomes,
except as against the loser, the property of the finder, who
appropriates it regardless of the place where it was found. Once a
boat was found adrift and the finder made the needful repairs to keep
it from sinking, yet the owner was mean enough to refuse to pay for
them. The court compelled him to make good the amount to the finder.

The law regards the possession of an article which is lost as being
that of the legal owner who was previously in possession, until the
article is taken into the actual possession of the finder. If the
finder does not know who the owner is and there is no clue to the
ownership, there is no larceny although the finder takes the goods for
himself and c