Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1894 — LAPSES OF IDENTITY. [ARTICLE]

LAPSES OF IDENTITY.

PEOPLE WHO DISAPPEAR FOR LONG PERIODS. Whan They Reappear to Thalr Frlends It is With No Momory of Thoir Wanderings. A paper entitled “People Who Drop Out of Sight,” by Dr. A. E. Osborne, superintendent of a home for children at Olen Allen, Cal.,- was read a few nights ago at the meeting of the Medico-Legal Society at the Academy of Medicine. After speaking of mysterious disappearances in general, and the usual inability to account for them, the paper gave several instances which the author says happened to persons, and under circumstances well known to him. The first case was that of a man of middle age, “in rugged health, and free irom any inherited neuropathic taint.” He was a plumber by trade, and lived in a town near Philadelphia. He was prosperous, and was neither overworked nor the victim of business troubles; his life was harmonious, and he had no bad habits. The Sunday on which he disappeared he had been In the house all day, reading and playing with his children. About four o’clock he got up from the lounge on which he lay, changed his house jacket for an ordinary business coat, and told his wife he was going out for a walk. Jle stepped Into the street and suddenly disappeared, as if he had vanished into air.

Although a conspicuous figure in the town, ana although tho streets were crowded, ho was seen by nobody. His absence continuing the next day an exhaustive search was made for him. But nothing could be learned. There was absolutely no trace of him, either in the t6wn or In the surrounding country. In due course the business was disposed of and tho family moved to Chicago, giving up all hope of finding a clue to the missing man’s disappearance. One day, two years later, a number of men were working at their trado In a tin shop In one of the Southern States. Suddenly one of them dropped his work and clasped his hands to his head. “My God!” he cried, looking about dazedly, “whore am I? How did I get hero? This isn’tmyshopl—where am 1? What does It mean?” His companions were at first disposed to laugh; but when they saw the man’s changed expression, the beads of sweat on his brow, and his nervous twltchings, they knew he was not drunk, but under the Influence of some great emotion. They spoke to him, but ho insisted that tho name they called him by was not Ills. At last he mode his way to the boss of the shop, and tried to explain about his family and his business In the North. The boss was incredulous. He know the man as a wandering tinsmith who had drifted Into the town seoking work at his trade, and whom ho had employed. He had proved to be a trustworthy and skilled workman, and no further Inquiry had been made. “Under a fictitious name,” Dr. Osborne says In his paper, “the man had been known to his companions, arid had been paid. He remembered nothing of the past during his period of employment; but at last a dim recollection had come -over, him of that fateful Sunday—his rising to go out, his promise to return soon—and then ull was a blank. He had no money, although he had worked steadily tn this shop and had recelvod good wages. At she last accounts I had of him he was at Chicago, living his normal life. Somewhat mystified over his realization of the strange freak In which ho figured, although feeling well and apparently in mental balance, he realized that he had been the central figure In some overstrange mental phenomena quite mysterious enough to make him, at times, doubt his sanity.” Dr. Osborne's second case hs speaks of thus: “A similar cose occurred to a resident of another town near Philadelphia. This man, whom we shall designate os X., was a lawyer, a prominent politician—a former member of Congress, I believe—a man of fine oratorical powers and of brilliant attainments.

“One day he got up from his desk, leaving his law books open at the pages he had been consulting, and stepped outside for a few moments. He disappeared. In due course vigorous search was instituted, reservoirs and streams were dragged for his body on the presumption that he had committed suicide, and, in short, all the means that money and influence would put into operation were employed ; but in vain—not the slightest clue was obtained, His domestic affairs were well knowm to be most happy. He was abstemious in his habits, and more devoted to his profession than to society. The hue and cry of premeditated flight was dispelled by the disordered state of his unlocked desk, over which were scattered papers and a mass of unfinished work. His accounts were all right, and among his papers were found uncashed checks amounting to several thousand dollars. “After several months had passed word came through official channels that X. was in Australia, and had applied to a representative of our Government there tb establish his identity and procure means for his transportation home. It was some time before his family were satisfied of his existence in that far-off country under such startling circumstances—broken in health, penniless, and unable to give a definite account of how be got there. “X. finally established his identity. His passage money was forwarded, and in due season he arrived in this country. He went direct to his former home, and, after a short period for recuperation, took up the practice of his profession, and was, as he has continued to be up to the last information I have had of him, his former normal self. How he had disappeared he was unable to say. He knew nothing until ‘he came to himself' aboard a steamer nearing an Australian port."—[New York Sun. A briOge is now in course of erection across the Missouri River between East Omaha and Council Bluffs which will be remarkable when completed as possessing the longest swing span in the world—626 feet—being fifteen feet longer than the swing span over the Thames River in Connecticut.