Topics of the Day.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 19, 8 November 1911, Page 45

Topics of the Day.

By Our London Correspondent.

THE LOST LEGION LONDON, Sept. 22nd. T 1 HE mysterious disappearance in London of the Australian dentist Allen Henderson is really a very commonplace incident in London life. Every year thousands of similar disappearances are reported to the police. Last year the number was close upon 29,000. The great majority di the disappeared were cither tracked down and restored to their friends, or voluntarily disclosed their whereabouts, but at the close of the year there were still 438 people unaccounted for. These figures only apply to the area under the charge of the Metropolitan police. The figures for tho whole of the United Kingdom are not available, but the total of the yearly additions to the really Lost Legion must yun into thousands.

A very large percentage of those who “fold their tents and steal silently away'* are husbands who desert their wives, and boy and girl runaways. Married men are eternally on the run, and it is computed that fully 80 per cent, of those reported ••missing” should be reported for wife desertion.

Of the balance a considerable percentage includes the victims of foul play, girls abducted and cajoled abroad for purposes it is needless to specify, and people done to death for the sake ot their money. Others disappear owing to fear of exposure through acts of immorality or dishonesty, and a small percentage apparently bury their identity for tae mere fun of the thing. Some of these disappear for all time, others restore themselves to their relatives and friends "hen the spirit moves them, often, be it said, to the vast inconvenience of those they have allowed to imagine them to have gone quite out of their lives.

It was only recently that a man who disappeared three or four years ago, turned up in the nick of time to prevent his ‘’widow” marrying again. His clothes and hat had been found on the beach near Beachy Head, and some time afterwards a corpse was washed ashore and identified as his. All the time intervening between his “death” and “resurrec-

tion” the man had been living within a few miles of his wife’s home. This mock drowning dodge has, however, been so often resorted to by sorely pressed debtors that the finding of clothing on beach or river bank has come to be looked upon as a very unreliable indication of a tragedy. If a man wants to disappear there is no finer place in the world than London to make a start in. You can hide in London with far less risk of discovery than in the remotest village in the Kingdom, for it is among crowds that observation is at its lowest.

The records of the police courts prove that it is quite easy for a man to live a double life in London for years without being found out, and not so very long ago a commercial traveller was actually running two homes barely a hundred yards apart. He was only bowled out 'through an accident which brought both his legitimate and his bigamous wife together at the hospital to which he had been carried by the police ambulance.

The police found letters in his pockets couched in wifely language which left them in doubt as 'to whether the unconscious victim of the accident was the husband of “Minnie Hunt” or “Clara Quinn.” So they sent word to both. The result was that on recovery from his accident Hunt-Quinn found himself arrested for bigamy. CRUISER V. LINER. The inexplicable collision between the gigantic White Star liner .“Olympic” and H.M.S. cruiser Hawke in Cowes Roads last Wednesday, will, of course, be the subject of a searching enquiry, and it would not be proper at this juncture to venture any opinion upon it. It seems almost past belief that two ships in charge of competent officers, steaming on practically parallel courses in the same direction, could, in broad daylight and on a clear day, be so navigated as to bring about such a serious collision that both ships received damage that it will take months to make good. Only tho official enquiry will reveal the cause of the disaster, but the theories favoured are that the cruiser’s steer-

ing gear failed at the critical moment, or that the cruiser in attempting to pass too close to tlx liner was depleted from her course by the suet ion of the huge litter. The accident, which happily caused no loss of life or injury to limb, has furnished splendid testimony to the stoutness of the mammoth liners of to-day. In order to compare the size of the two ships the displacement tonnage of the ••Olympic” must lie taken. This ia about UO.OOO tons, whilst that of the “Hawke” is 7.350; in other words, the liner is more than eight times as large as the cruiser, tin the other hand, it seems dear that the “Hawke” came into collision in precisely the manner in which her designer intended that she should, when what Kipling has called “The Real ‘Thing” came to pass. She has a powerful ram formed of a very strong casting, projecting some, eight or ten feet forward of her stem head and having its point ten feet or more below the water line. This ram is stiffened by the armoured deck, which is about three inches thick forward and slopes down to the point of the ram. For the rest the ship is 3GO feet long, is armed with two9.2in. and ten Gin. guns, lias a designed speed of 20 knots, and was built nearly twenty years ago. She has recently been refitted at large cost, and at the time OX

the accident seems to have been returning from a steam trial in the Channel. The “Hawke” struck the “Olympic.” dean and hard, and the result shows the small power of the ram against one of the modern leviathans. The “Hawke” indeed, got a lot the worst of tlie encounter. Her bows above water were driven in as though they were made of tin, and when she was dry-docked the damage below the water-line surprised the experts. Their opinion was that the heavy steel casting would have held secure, but when the water from No. 12 dock, into which the cruiser had been placed, was pumped dry yesterday afternoon, it showed that the casting had been shattered and parts had disappeared altogether, while the heavy steel plates were crumpled up. The rivet heads are snapped clean off. leaving only one here and there holding tho plates to the ship. The great mass is bent at an angle of about forty-five degrees to starboard, and shows that while tho blow delivered to the “Olympic” above the water-line must have been terrific, still more serious damage must have been done below the waterline, because of the shape of the cruiser’s ram. So extensive is tho injury to the “Hawke” that a

completely new stem and how for a dis

tanee of twenty or thirty feet will be required before she can be recommiesioned for service. Tho condition of the “Hawke” bears eloquent testimony to the stoutness of the “Olympic's” build.

QUEER LABOUR EXCHANGE TASKS.

The requirements of some employer* who make use of the London Labour Exchanges are indeed extraordinary. In the “Situation Vacant” list exhibited at one Exchange was an application for a “Two-headed Lady” for a travelling circus. Another ran “Man Wanted to .Slaughter Horses : must be fond ot birds,” and a third read “ Wanted a Carter to live in Wales ; non swearer preferred.”

Yet another was for “An Ex|ierieiiced Elephant Keeper,” and one employer required “an ex-Army bandsman, able to play oboe, to work in factory.” Tho Exchange, be It said, found people to fill all these situations, even to the two-headed lady. The advertisements noted are merely samples of hundreds of queer “wants” which are sent to the Exchanges by employers all over the United Kingdom, and it is to the credit of the officials that they are seldom faced with a task they are not equal to performing satisfactorily. In some cases their success in being able to put employers in touch with the workmen they want is due to coincidences that can only be described as marvellous. One coincidence recently reported was indeed miraculous. A starving man walked into the office and implored assistance in getting work of any kind at any wage. He said that he had seen better days in America, and understood the working of certain new and complicated drilling machinery used in mining

Actually while the man was in the office, a telephone message was received from a North-country firm of engineers who asked if the Labour Exchange could assist them to find a man who understood the very machinery the man b id mentioned, as they had sought in vain for such 'nan. and feared that they would have to send to America for one.

On hearing that the exchange knew of a suitable man the firm offered him a retaining fee of ton shillings a day until he could arrive nt the mine, and a salary of £2O a month on taking up his duties.

Almost equally remarkable was the case of an employer who rushed to an exchange to see if by chance there was a capable diver on the books who would be ready to proceed at once to West Africa on urgent wreck business. That very morning a man had registered his minis with the bureau. He was, like the mining drill man. ready to take anything that offered, but his profession was that of a diver. And whilst the wouldbe employer was taking down particulars of tlie man's name and address, in walked the man himself. He had been turned out of his lodgings because he could not pay the rent, and desired to change his address. Here again an engagement speedily resulted.

Apart from such almost incredible coincidences there can be no question that the much criticised Labour Exchangee are doing a vast amount of good in bringing would-be employers and workless working men together, and are fully justifying their cost to tho nation.