GREAT POLICE TASK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22432, 29 November 1934, Page 10

GREAT POLICE TASK

TRACING MISSING GIRLS SCOTLAND YARD'S EFFORTS. No fewer than 732 girls in Britain, reported to the police as "missing," have now been traced as a direct result of Scotland Yard's efforts to solve Trunk Mystery No, 1. More than 1000 young women were still untraced at the beginning of October, but not a day passed without additions being made to the list of girls who had been Joeated. This is an indication of the unprecedented efforts which Scotland Yard is still making to clear up a mystery which ranks as the most baffling of the century. The Yard :s relying on a process of elimination to discover the victim. In the course of that process many girls are being reconciled to parents from whom they have been estranged for

years. A considerable proportion of parents whose daughters have been traced feared that the victim might prove to be their child. Scotland Yard was able to allay their anxiety at once in many cases because of discrepancies in age or appearance compared with that of the crime victim.

Only a relatively small number of girls reported missing were ever regarded by the Yard as likely victims. The short list of missing young women who come into this category has been reduced to fewer than 50 names.

An extraordinary insight into the question of why girls leave home has been obtained by the Scotland Yard men in charge of the missing persons department of the trunk investigation. But al the information obtained from parents and from daughters who have been traced is treated in strict confidence. It has been found that nearly all the girls had gone away voluntarily. Many explained that they found parental restrictions icksonie. Others went to escape from an unhappy home life. A few girls had fallen on hard times, but were too proud to turn to their parents for help. One London girl was found by Scotland Yard seriously ill in hospital. She is now back again with he 1- family. Another was found hungry and destitute in a slum district. She, too, has been reconciled to her parents. Scotland Yard has never before tackled such a gigantic task as the tracing of all these missing women. As many as 50 different inquiries have had to be made in many towns and villages throughout the country to discover the whereabouts of a single individual.