STRANGE DISAPPEARANCES.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13575, 5 December 1907, Page 3

STRANGE DISAPPEARANCES.

LAPSES OF MEMORY. An extraordinary disappearance . isj reported from Victoria. Some three years ago a man named Alfred Boldner went in for a dip in tho sea, and was never seen to come out. He entirely disappeared, and his relatives came to tho conclusion that he had been eaten by a shark. Guarantees. were given. to the A.M.P. Society, and the insurance money on Boldner was paid over. ' The other day Boldner was seen by three people who had known him, at a race meeting. Tho suggestion of mistaken identity seems to" be out of the question, and one is left to theorise why Boldner disappeai*ed. It is suggested that he sustained some injury to his head in the water, which affected his mind and caused him to forget his identity. Such cases are not unknown. A Melbourne commercial traveller, while out on business ono morning, fell off his • bicyclo and landed heavily on his head. He recovered sufficiently to return, to his office, and at one o'clock left on his bicycle fqr his. homo at Footscray. He did not reach his home, and the most searching inquiries failed to find any trace of him. Three months' later he turned up with an astonishing story, which close investigation failed to shako. Ho left his bicyclo and tramped out into tho country-^-this part of his adventures was a blank — and obtained work on a farm. He stayed there three months. One Sunday morning his memory came back to him,, and, filled with anxiety for his family, he borrowed a bicycle and rode home. How he canie to be on tho farm he could never tell. In the. case of a Gippsland business man, tho loss of memory was gradual. Slight tricks of memory developed into lapses, which disorganised his business. Then ho disappeared 'completely and unaccountably. For two years there was no tidings of him, and he was given up for dead. Suddenly ho reappeared, restored to mental health, but remembering only that ho bad found Mmself in South Africa. Of his wanderings in the interval he could givo no account.

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