MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 12888, 26 June 1913, Page 8

MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES.

Every year in.-London and ■■ other great cities ■thousands of people disappear in an unaccountable fashion. Of these vi great many 4iro either found by 'the' police, alive or dead, or return homo voluntarily or. are traced-by their friends and "relatives, But there always remains (in residue of unexplained oases. Mr. 6. J 11. ..Sims recapitulates' some instances j which from time to time have set London.wondering and stimulated 'the- effarts of qmateur detectives. Crime, ho «nys, is not to be.credited with so large a percentage of the mysterious disappearances; «s is usually imagined- Often the ca.so is one of voluntary vanishing. A.curious caw in point which. Mr. Sims r-ilnto« vy-as that of the JRov. Mr Speke, a brother, of the famous African cx- ; plorcr, who on the Bth of January, IS6B, i left his homo in ■Somersetshire to act as f "'oe<s(/ rr,an" .at the wcdd'ng of a friend jin London. The day of the wedding j came and passed, but the " best man" i did not arrive. Enquiries were made, and tho missins; •clf>r£rvmnn was tiv"«r' I to n hatter's, in -'Warwick-street, where ho mi-chased .a new bat. .After that—nothing.' The Somersetshire rector 'had apparently been spirited away into | sr>n.c-o. A dark crime was not unnatur-ally.susp-scted; and it w<n<?"attz-ibutpdto the; Fenian militants who wei'o theft ternn-ising the capital. This idea was ..coirfinr-odjn; the public mind by thp fact' that the next morning a workman pickied v ptho miss Her man's old hat. But on the 28th of Fchcuary tho arrest of a ; Biillobk drover in''Cornwall who was be-:;l!oved->to bo.ia i iitan '/ wanted" by the |T>olicc Jfor some offence, allayed the inj fiam-od curiosity of an imaginatve pubi lie. The reverend gentleman had merely boon, .snizfcd with a desire to try the '•.simple life," and had cone on a walking tour, d'Rßuis-cd tand strictly incogj mto. through various country districts op England. It was suggested that a fit of denrossion, or .shvno.se at thp'. -prospect of tho gay society into which he «nnjri. be cast, was tho cause. It is doubtful whether so simple and almost comical nn explanation could br> givon of the disanrjearance of Wilfred Jagger, M.A., 8.C.L., 4i fine 3^oung fellow, six f?.°t two in hoitclit, in perfect r-bvsical end mental health, and financially unembannssed vrlio left his rooms at ; Kogent's Park, on Sunday. May Bth. li) 10. with :a'sovereign in hi s purse and a volumo of M.n.rk T-vniT-. irj Imp nnr.l-^ Tfe was seen a few minutes later going towards Gloucester Gato, llegent's Park, and since then no living being oan bo iV.isrrfl w ho has seen or heard anything c;f him. Whether his was >a case of"loss cr raemnn'," o>- whether ho shared th<? fate of Miss Holland, who ivqs fonr,d l.i-ned v-onr Jfoat Farm, or of tM» Y>avhy family—husband, wife tmd child —win-, wore discovered in a sack buriM i!i tho Garden of a vilin. or cf tho wifo and cTiildren of Arthur Prveroux, -who v, ore found packed in n. .large travelling trunk and wp.re^oufed at a fnrnjturo repository in iho north-west of London, '.yinof. bo told. And ho was only one or Jiwiklitcls. thonch hi'; ea^e sp-ems'mo.ro 5-^nJ.ng than most. In 1911-nlnno. of 2S.9>S pernons who disaprcaved. the fate «i- -IC, remained wrapped in mystary.