MEN WHO DISAPPEAR.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 15 November 1913, Page 12

MEN WHO DISAPPEAR.

TRAGEDIES OF MODERN CITY LIFE.

Sixty-three men and forty-eeven women intimately connected with the business life of the city of London have been reported ''missing" during the present year at Scotland Yard and other police centres. In the majority of cases these people have proceeded as usual to their avocations, have done their work in the usual way, and have then passed out into "the unknown"—to be reported "missing." The teeming millions as usual have rushed to the city by train, tramcar, and tube; a few — a very few —have heard of the disappearance of a familiar face, and then silence and forgetfulness.

Mr Frederick Hazell, for 29 years connected with a firm of colonial brokers' in Eastcheap, went out of his orfice at no an one day, ostensibly to go to lunch. Behind him he left his overcoat and cane. His letters and books remained on his desk. In the ordinary course he would have been back within an hour. During the morning his work had proceeded as usual. Everything was normal. He just walked out to lunch —and has not been heard of since, except through an unintelligible postcard received by his wife the following -morning bearing the postmark "Shepperton."

He had no cause for anxiety. His books were in perfect order. He "stood well with all members of his firm, ana his work had given highest satisfaction. Locally, around Mitcham, where he lived, he was greatly respected by a wide circle of friends.

At 39 years of age this business man, of high repute, alter 20 years' strenuous worjj, just walked out of the office —"to lunch"—and into oblivion. The rush, the turmoil, the business demands on the human machine broke it, and Hazell's solitary, incoherent cry camo through the post —"I am sorry to bring this disgrace upon you." Since then— silence.

A few weeks earlier Mr Harold F. Williams, an official in the Valuation Department of the Inland Revenue, left his work suddenly. Thirty-eight years of age, a man of excellent address and high ability, he was last seen at High street, Sittmgbourne, Kent, about 2 p.m., on the day named. Since then nothing has been heard of him. No reason can be assigned beyond ill-health for his disappearance. These are only two instances within a short jtime, s?ys the Standard, of the tragedy of modern business life. At Scotland Yard daily these reports are common. Veritable strings of names and descriptions may be inspected there and at the various police stations of which the world knows little or nothing. But certain it is there are many homes in London where the memories of these unsolved mysteries linger and bring shadow and sorrow in silence, while the' great businesses proceed and the gaps are quickly filled.