Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 192, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1913 — CITY OF MYSTERIES [ARTICLE]

CITY OF MYSTERIES

Over 20,000 Disappear Every Year in London. Little Hope of Discovery—By Moving Around the Corner One Can Vanish Completely, Declares a Veteran Detective.

London. —The disappearance of ths Memphis '‘millionaire," Joseph Wilber-, force Martin, in the hidden depths of London has served to remind the whole world that the British capital is in many ways the best hiding place that anybody can utilize. The city is so vast that the police can only investigate any case on well understood and well defined lines. A smart man learns these lines. He does not rush to the railroad depots to get knocked down by an auto and conveyed to a hospital. He does not take too much to drink and secrete himself in a police cell. He merely changes his name, his clothes and his address, and if he does not provoke feminine curiosity he is as safe in London as he would be in the desert of the Sahard. The best proof of this will be found in the fact that on the day that J. W. Martin disappeared in London somewhere about fifty other persons vanished.' A similar number were lost the day before, and a similar number the day after. But no outcry waa raised on the subject. “London does not boast or shout about its mysteries. It is only when something really dramatic happens and there are shrewd folks like the Americans concerned in the solution that a real big stir is made. Then one realizes with a start of surprise that somewhere about 20,000 men and women disappear every year within that puzzling conglomeration of towns and cities to which is given the magic name of 'London.’” An outcry was raised over the disappearance of Antanas Vedegris, a wealthy Lithuanian, who came to London on business in January, and on the 17th of that month visited a friend, a priest, and has not been seen since. Yet he was a man of forty, could speak English fairly well, and had a physique that few “toughs” would care to tackle in the daylight. He had about SIO,OOO in his possession and facilities for obtaining more money if he wished to do so.

( Some time ago two girl students took rooms together in the west end. One night they were hanging pictures and they found they had run short of nails. “I’ll go out and get some,” one said. She went, just as she was. without hat or coat, to a little store round the corner, while her companion set about preparing the evening meal. The girl never returned. Inquiries showed that she did not visit the store, and she has not been heard of since. “London has cloaks enough to hide iis all,” Sherllker contends. “If you want to disappear all you need do is to move around the corner; Very few people in the metropolis are on speaking terms with those who live in the next flat or in the next house. There have been several cases ,ln recent years of policemen having resided tn the same block as men who were wanted for some notorious crime, and there is an instance on record of a wealthy ex-convict who vanished, assumed a disguise and another name, became a property owner and actually leased a house to the judge who some years before had sentenced him to penal servitude.”