SOME REMARKABLE THINGS WHICH DISAPPEAR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2389, 14 December 1899, Page 56

SOME REMARKABLE THINGS WHICH DISAPPEAR.

There is something unhappily commonplace in the disappearance of a watch, a or any portable valuable ; but when a whole bridge, a dozen miles of railway, a huge boiler, or a 13in cannon is spirited away, there is an element of the grotesque; as well as of the mysterious. It is not many months since the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton Railway Company was compelled to advertise for the recovery of a steel bridge which had vanished during transport, and of which no trace whatever could be found. The bridge, which was of steel, and weighed 28 tons, had been securely (as the company thought) fastened on three flat waggons and started on its journey to Dayton, where it was to be placed *in position. The train safely reached' its destination, but not the bridge, which had vanished during the journey into thin air. It was thought that it had slipped from the trucks while rounding a curve in the line, but the most careful search failed to discover its hiding place. What became of it is, we believe, not known to this day, in spite of the large reward offered for its restoration. There was something almost equally mysterious in the loss Avhicli led to the inser- j tion of the following advertisement a year ago in a Liverpool newspaper : — " Whereas on the night of October 10 a j houseful of furniture was removed during ! the absence of the owner from No. street, a reward of £50 is hereby offered to anyone who will give information leading to its recovery." At 10 o'clock during the night in question two large vans had drawn up at the house ; the. house was entered by the front door, and within two hours the vans hnd driven off again, leaving the house entirely

, stripped of its contents. It is believed that no trace of the missing fur.niture was ever found. - ' It is quite a common thing for the torpedoes used in practice' on the Defiance arid, other torpedo instruction ships 'to .be lost ' and for rewards to be advertised for their { recovery. As each torpedo represents a cost | of at least £300, the loss is ' naturally a ' serious matter. , ; It is seldom, however, that a cannon wp ;<vl '.im' jn.inv tons vanishes from sight and has to be advertised for. A few weeks iijii, however, it. was announced in 'the • payers that a 13in gun. the property of the War Department of the United States, had disappeared, and a reward was offered for its recovery. Three years ago a gentleman purchased I at Woolwich a disused boiler for the sum Jof -£15. When the time arrived for reI moving the boiler, which weighed ten tons, it could not be found, and the most diligent search failed to disclose its whereabouts. For more than two years the boiler was as invisible as i^ it had never • existed except in the imagination of its ' unfortunate buyer. At last it was found, during a survey of old stores, concealed behind a small mountain of scrap-iron ; although how and when it was spirited away will always remain a mystery. In the early nineties a large schooner vanished mysteriously from its moorings in the Mersey, and has never since been seen. No doubt, under a new name, and disguised by a new coat of paint, it is doing service in foreign ports. One of the strangest disappearances of all is undoubtedly that of a line of railway connecting Birr, in King's County, Ireland, with Portumna Bridge, on the Shannon. The line, which is (or was) twelve and a half miles long, and perfectly appointed, was leased for ten years to the Great Southern and Western Railway, and at the expiration of the lease came into the hands of the Board of Works Loan Commissioners, who held a mortgage on it. The Government took no steps to work the line, which gradually fell into decay. Bolts and screws 'and similar portable adjuncts of the railway began to disappear ; and when the Government declined to prosecute the purloiners, they were emboldened to take greater spoil. The line was quickly stripped of rails and sleepers, turn-tables, signalling apparatus — everything, in fact, that could be removed. The station at Portumna Bridge vanished in a single night ; and now nothing remains of a once prosperous line j but the embankments and 'cuttings which serve to mark its course.