another odd headline

“Study: Lost wallets rarely returned”

I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a goody-goody, but it’s really a mistake not to track down someone whose wallet you find. Even if you find all the ethical duties here completely dull, you have the power to create a minor miracle when you find someone’s wallet. No one ever expects to get it back, and you can give them the positive shock of a lifetime if you return it.

I don’t recall ever finding a wallet with a lot of money in it. (Except for the time a guy on the Cairo-Alexandria train dropped his out of his back pocket right in front of me, and it was simply a matter of calling out to him.) But I do have a vague memory of tracking some other people down for other things. And whenever I see those “lost pet” signs up in the U.S. I do try to keep an eye out for the animal in question.