> as lemmas

1807 W. C. Hazlitt Reply Ess. Population ii. 50 I [sc. Malthus] have a short answer to all objections, to be sure I found it in an old political receipt-book..by one Wallace, a man not much known, but no matter for that, finding is keeping, you know.

1848 Puppet Show 9 Sept. 154/2 I need not pay for it, on the well known principle of our school-boy days, of ‘Findings, keepings’.

1861 Dublin Univ. Mag. July 73/2 The vulgar proverb, ‘Findings are keepings,’ may come too true.

1863 J. H. Speke Jrnl. Discov. Source Nile v. 121 The scoundrels said, ‘Findings are keepings, by the laws of our country; and as we found your cows, so we will keep them.’

1904 Daily Chron. 27 Sept. 1/7 Harsh sentences of imprisonment for ‘findings-keepings’ offences.

1953 Irish Times 20 June 8 The ticket was Hennesy's property; and the law doesn't recognise that findings are keepings, you know.

1959 I. Opie & P. Opie Lore & Lang. Schoolchildren viii. 134 Articles may be acquired..by ‘finding-keeping’.

1963 G. Greene Sense of Reality 38 ‘I found them in the passage..’ ‘Finding's not keeping here’, he said, ‘whatever it may be up there.’

1982 PN Rev. No. 26. To read my hand and find I have no heart is doubtful palmistry but honest thieving and true. I have no heart if finding's keeping.