THE LOST CHILD THAT IS NEVER FOUND.
To kidnap an innocent child, to rob a fond mother of the greatest treasure God can give her, to tear away from a mother’s sweet and pure embrace her own flesh and blood—that is a crime as heinous as murder.
Kidnappings are reported to the police each day.
What is the result? About forty-five per cent of the kidnapped children are never found.
What of the remaining? God alone can tell of the tragedies which they have probably endured. Many of them have been slain by the demons who stole them, many, particularly those of maturer years, have been sold into abominable White Slavery, and others have been made slaves in other ways to make a living for their masters.
It is the custom of the police to put the name of a missing child, who is usually a kidnapped child, lured away from its home, on the pages of the “missing book.”
The story is sent over police wires to the various stations and precincts as a kind of conformity to the letter necessity. These cases are not given individual attention by the police. They are forgotten and all that is left of the case is the faded, written report.
Occasionally a tragedy that has brought sorrow and misery to some home, driven a mother mad with grief and robbed a father of his reason, comes to light through the powerful influences of the newspapers.
The cases which are given display heads in the papers with pathetic pictures accompanying them, are but few in hundreds of the stories of missing and kidnapped children in which the tragedies are just as deep, just as abiding and just as horrible.
These cases are usually found by some energetic and enthusiastic reporter who “happens” upon them by chance. The circumstances appeal to him and he “gets busy.”
Day after day he prods the police into annoying activity. He finally arouses public sympathy and interest and the police are of necessity obliged to make a pretense at hard labor. They work on the case and frequently obtain successful results that gladden the heart of some frantic mother.
Did they accomplish the work?
To be fair and honest—No. The thanks are due the unknown members of the press and not the police department.