MEN OF MYSTERY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 104, 29 May 1909, Page 4

MEN OF MYSTERY.

There has been quite an epidemic of "mysterious disappearances" lately (says a Home paper). The papers have been full of thom, And it must he niemcmbcred that it is only where the disappearing ones have some claim to fame that much fuss is made about their loss. A mo*» or "distinguished" poet, a musk hall sketch artist with whose name the public is familiar, a popular actress--tie fact that such are missing is published far and wide. TEX THOUSAND DISAPPEARANCES ANNUALLY. But what of the rank and file? These "disappear" daily by the score, by the hundred even, all over the country, and nobody—«xcept, of course, their" relatives and friends—troubles. You may read about these on the notice-boards of every police-station—if they happen to be married, and to have left families on the rates. l''or then the guardians offer small rewards for information as to their whereabouts, j It has been estimated that the number of these "disannearances" is normally not less than ten thousand annually. And in time of stress' and trouble

it is much greater. Also, any big public catastrophe is seized upon by people anxious to effuce themselves.

In 1898, for instance, a big battleihip, the Albion, was launched at lllack-

ivall by the Prince and Princess of( IVales, and the backwash of -water •wept some hundreds of people into the riiamesi. About thirty-seven of these ivere known to have been drowned, but many who were :iot jumped at the shanee to efface themselves. In Wool-

ivicb alone forty husbands disappeared, About half nf these turned up afterwards, sometimes years afterwards. APPEARED AS A CLAIMANT.

The same thing happened, but on a much greater scale, when the Princess Alice went dow.i. About seven hundred were supposed to haw been lost, but in that terrible welter of death it was impossible to individualise, and scores of those who .figured on the death-roll were afterwards <cen and heard or. One such resurrected himself ten years later to claim a legacy. Another figured iu a erimijiaj prosecution for bigamy. While yet; a lli'ir:! was found, liiiiifjy nineteen years after the cataritropiic, living in the next street but fine to his wife, who imagined herself a widow. 1 Me had been there all the while.