WHY GIRLS LEAVE HOME.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20202, 12 January 1934, Page 9

WHY GIRLS LEAVE HOME.

250 Vanish Every Year in Victoria. POLICE INVESTIGATE REASON Two hundred and fifty girls vanish from their homes in Victoria each year. Of this number the police on an average trace 90 per cent and return them to their homes within ten days. Why do girls disappear in this way without telling their relatives where they are going? Police investigation into these cases from week to week reveals many strange stories. There is the bored girl. She becomes bored with her home, bored with her job and bored with the daily journey from home to job and from job to home. This boredom, to some temperamental girls, becomes so intolerable that they pack a lew clothes and start out with no clear idea of their destination. In such cases the police find that the girl will not remain away long. She finds quickly that the daily routine which “ got on her nerves ” has more glamour than an aimless wandering about with dwindling cash. Travel Obsession. Then there is the nomadic girl. Travel obsesses her. She is the girl who constantly pores over the railway and shipping advertisements. She always wants to be going somewhere. I his type, the police usually find, is an inveterate week-end tripper, who, at the end of one holiday excursion * begins to plan where she will go on the next. Both the bored girl and the nomadic girl usually give some hint to close friends of either boredom or wanderlust, and, incidentally, a clue to the police. Quarrels at home are frequently the cause of girls leaving without saying where they are going. Some hypersensitive girls deeply but secretly resent remarks that are bandied about in such family quarrels. They say nothing to anybody, but take the first favourable opportunity of leaving the strained atmosphere. One of the first questions asked by investigating police is whether there has been a quarrel at home. Broken Romances. A fair proportion of the disappearances of girls each year, the police find, is prompted by broken romances. The story of a lovers’ quarrel and the desire of the girl to get as far away from the scene of it as possible, comes up frequently. In such cases the police find that it is much more difficult to trace the girl. She usually secures a position and lodgings, and is less anxious to return to her home surroundings than some of the other types. Each year a great amount of work by the police is entailed in seeking to trace missing girls.