Gittin

MISHNAH. IF THE BEARER OF A GET LOSES IT. ON THE WAY, IF HE FINDS IT AGAIN IMMEDIATELY IT IS VALID, AND IF NOT IT IS NOT VALID.  IF HE FINDS IT IN A HAFISAH OR IN A DELUSKAMA  OR  IF HE RECOGNISES IT, IT IS VALID. GEMARA. Is there not a contradiction [between this Mishnah and the following]:  'If a man finds bills of divorcement of wives or of emancipation of slaves or wills or deeds of gift or receipts, he should not deliver them,  for I say that after they were written [the writer] changed his mind and decided not to give them'. I infer from this, do I not, that if he had said 'Give them,'  they are to be given, even if a long interval had elapsed? — Rabbah replied: There is no difficulty. Here [in our Mishnah the reference] is to a place where caravans pass frequently, there [the other] to a place where caravans do not frequently pass.  And even in a place where caravans frequently pass, [the Get is invalid] only if there are presumed to be two men named Simon ben Joseph in the same town. For if you do not [understand Rabbah thus], then there is a contradiction between this statement of Rabbah and another of his. For a Get was once found in the Beth din of R. Huna in which was written, 'In Shawire, a place by the canal Rakis', and R. Huna said: The fear that there may be two Shawires is to be taken into account;  and R. Hisda said to Rabbah: Go and look it up carefully, because to-night R. Huna will ask you about it, and he went and looked up and found that we had learnt [in a Mishnah]: 'Any document which has passed through a Beth din is to be returned'.  Now the Beth din of R. Huna was on a par with a place where caravans pass frequently, and Rabbah decided that the document should be delivered. From this we conclude that if there are known to be two men named Simon ben Joseph in the town it is [not to be returned], but otherwise it is.  In the case of a Get which was found 'among the flax' in Pumbeditha, Rabbah acted according to the rule just laid down.  Some say it was found in the place where flax was soaked, and although there were two persons of the same name known to be in the place, he ordered it to be returned because it was not a place where caravans passed frequently. Some again say that it was the place where flax was sold, and there were not two persons of the same name known to be there though caravans did pass frequently. R. Zera pointed to a contradiction between the Mishnah and the following Baraitha, and also resolved it. We learn here: IF THE BEARER OF A GET LOSES IT ON THE WAY AND FINDS IT AGAIN IMMEDIATELY, IT IS VALID, AND IF NOT IT IS NOT VALID. This seems to contradict the following: If a man finds a bill of divorce in the street, if the husband acknowledges it he should deliver it to the woman, but if the husband does not acknowledge it he should give it neither to one nor to the other.  It says here at any rate