400 MISSING CLERGYMEN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 293, 3 May 1913, Page 9

400 MISSING CLERGYMEN

THIRTY DISAPPEARED LAST YEAR. No fewer than thirty clergymen of the Church of England have been missed since March of last year, with no explanation of their disappearance. On the other hand, ten incumbents and curates, who had been missing from their parishes before then, have been discovered, so that the Church has lost in all 20 of its ordained members in the last 12 months. In a statement to a representative of the London Daily Chronicle, the compilers of "Crockford"' directory expressed the opinion that nervous breakdown of hard-worked clerics and disappearances while travelling abroad accounted for some of the mysteries, while the solution of others has been found afterwards in the transfer of clergymen to the world of business without any intimation having been made. Enquiries in all part- of the world are made before a priest i- given up for lost. In addition to communications sent to the last known address and returned by arrangement with the post ollice in case's of non-delivery, enquiries are made of the. diocesan registrars, the archdeacons and the bishops, while if tin- missing clergyman be a curate, the assistance of the incumbent of his last parish is sought. Search is then conducted 011 a wider scale, and if every effort fails the name and record of the missing priest is taken from the body of the work and consigned to the "appendix." to wait for a new clue. The list has grown so large—comprising now some four hundred missing clergyman that in the new edition all those who disappeared more than ten years ago are to be taken out.