LONDON’S LOST GIRLS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16456, 18 June 1921, Page 6

LONDON’S LOST GIRLS.

It is estimated that 2000 women and girls are reported missing in London every year. Every day m the year missing women are reported to the London police. Three times a day the names and descriptions of these people are read out to the uniformed, men before they go on duty. But the police seldom find the missing persons. How can they? A policeman has far too much to do without gazing into every woman’s face to see if she tallies with anyone officially reported ‘‘ missing.” About SO per cent of the women who leave home return of themselves within a few days. The majority of the remainder write to their people yz say that they are all right. A few, a very few, of them are recovered from the river or the hedges, dead, either by their own act or from exposure. The others—about 4 per eoant—are untraced, and their fates are mysteries which are never unravelled.

A recent caso in point was that of a nurse, Miss Hickman, of the Royal Free Hospital, of London, who disappeared '•ast spring. A great outcry was made at. the time of her disappearance, hut no trace of her could bo found. Then the hue and cry died away and recently, months afterwards, her dead body was found in a plantation at Richmond Park. The story behind the tragedy, if known, has not been made public.