Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 October 1887 — MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES. [ARTICLE]

MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES.

Two Cum in England of Historic Interest —The Man of the Iron Mask. Mysterious disappearances have been far more numerous than hasty readers imagine—some permanent, some temporary. I do not allude to modern ones within living men’s memories, says a correspondent of London Tid-Bits, but to some past ones of thrilling interest, and about which very many people do not know much, except those who study old ephemeral literature. The story of the “Man with the Iron Mask” most have heard of, but what is not so well known is that, though a general notion exists that this individual was Mattheole, Minister of Parma, there is very strong evidence that he was really the Due de Beaufort, with whose mysterious disappearance, in the letter half of the seventeenth century, we will commence our list. He was the grandson of Henry IV. of France and the fair Gabrielle, Duchess of Beaufort. He was a most adventurous man, and ever keeping Louis XlV.’s ministers in “hot water. ” He was the favorite of the fiery Paris mob, always an important factor in French government. Kidnaping political enemies was a common stratagem then on the continent. Beaufort went to Candia with the French troops sent there on an expedition, and was never seen publicly again, having been, it was said, killed. But a rumor grew stronger and stronger that he was the mysterious captive who was at the lie St. Marguerite, where he flung the silver dish out, which was picked up by the fisherman who owed his life to never having been taught to read. What made these rumors stronger was the knowledge that the prisoner was treated with all the honor and deference shown to royalty. Louis XIV. took great interest in the veiled captive, whoever he was, and who died in the Bastile just twelve years earlier than the grand monarch. But the brilliant Due de Beaufort, though sought for by troops of friends, disappeared from all public gaze from the time he reached Condia. Next we will consider a very different and much humbler person who mysteriously disappeared, and about whese disappearance as little is known now after immense investigation as there was 134 years ago. This is Elizabeth Canning, whose case set all England by the ears pro and con. On New Year’s Day, 1753, she disappeared in Bishopsgate street on her way to her mother’s shop in Aldermanbury, then a street of small, old-fash-ioned Jiouses. Kewards were offered, inquiries made, but the ill-lit streets, full of ruffians, and the absence of police, made any outrage possible. Nearly a month passed when, one night, a spectral figure tottered into the Aldermanbury shop, in whose emaciated face and form her mother hardly recognized Elizabeth Canning. She said she had been imprisoned in a lonely house at Enfield. Two women were tried, convicted, and, under the then Draconian laws, sentenced to death. A reaction came. England was divided into friends and foes of the girl. The women were pardoned, and the girl was tried for perjury, convicted, and transported for seven years, but it was a nominal sentence, for she married in the convict settlement, throve, returned home, and died early. Very many considered her a martyr; her principles and demeanor were uniformly religious, modest, and quiet, and her character excellent. Many controversies have been held, but of that mysterious disappearance we know just as much and just as little as did our ancestors in the reign of George 11., who, by the way, took a personal interest in the inquiries.