MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81899, 10 December 1906, Page 3

MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.

__ » Not long ago a well-known New Sfork physician vanished from his. home and was traced months afterward«, to a London hospital, whither he had come drawn by the recollection of his Muaent day:). His ni.rnl between the time of his departure and his discovery here haa been a blank. tragedy is at the back of these disappearances. We all remember the startling sequel to Sir Francis Jeune's givrag permis<>i«j( to presume Miss Holland dead —-he ,wai found murdered at the Moat Farm. Mr Loomis, the American diplomat who disappeared from an Atlantic liner was afterwards picked up dead on the coast of Devon. A couple of years ago the member for Malmesbury was io»t. He has not been seen again. His fate was Ike that of Andrea, for he disappeared in a baloon. . Mr Douglas Pyne, M.P. for We* Waterford, seen safely on a ", vessel crossing from Dublin to Holibead was never again met in the

flesh. On the other hand. Mr Cargill; another Irish member, turned up just in time to prevent hi* scat be.ng declared vacant. But he was at the pther side of the wor.d. Criminals prove that it is fairly ea~y to dodge their seekers in this country. But Mr Jerome K. Jerome holds the record for the most successful and daring disappearance. For a wager he agreed tu van'Sh and took him-elf Off while his friends were still on the alert. He disappeared while they .were reading a mysterious letter which he handed to one of the party. -When last seen he was stepping aboard a houseboat on the Thames. Then for a month he seemed to have gone out of existence. His friends, for the i >he th'ng, put the police on his I ..li:ng for his arrest for steal- ■ . -at. A month passed and t novelist and the boat appeartTa't ihe lattera old moorings. What he had done was simply to take the boat up stream, then during the night erase lier name and substitute another, and change the color of the paint here and there so as to render her as unlike her former s c fas possible. Hu •cheme was a success in every particular. When, the other year, the will of the Grand Duchess Mana .interna of Tuscany was published, it wealed the fact that to the last she believed that her son, the Aroiduke johann, still :ived. He was the nephew of the Emperor Francis Josephand, in spite of fanvly counsels, mar »ied an opera singer, renounced his name and titles, and assumed the style of "Johann Orth. 7 ' The pair came to London, and were married at an Islington registry office. Ihen they set sail for South Amerca in a ship which he had bought and stocked at Liverpool. He had a quarter of a million sterling in cash on board and it is suppo-ed that he meant >o buy an estate in Chili. The ship was reported at Monte Video, but thereafter nothing more was heard of her or her passengers. Sh'e disappeared as completely as if the recent Chilian earthquake had engulfed her. Many theories have been advanced to account for the mystery, a favored one I k being that the Archduke changed his L name and that of the sh p. landed- ■ and live* to-dav unknown. The nv re belief is' that the ship was in a storm and the romance in hopeless tragedy.—"St. ■h 1 ! GpetV'