[46] Arnold's "History of Streatham," 1866, 164-166. An extraordinary case of concealment of sex is recorded in the "Annual Register," under Jan. 23, 1833. An inquiry was instituted by order of the Home Secretary relative to the death of "a person who had been known for years by the name of Eliza Edwards," but who turned out to be a man.

CHAPTER XIII.[ToC]

EXTRAORDINARY DISAPPEARANCES.

"O Annie,
It is beyond all hope, against all chance,
That he who left you ten long years ago
Should still be living; well, then—let me speak;
I grieve to see you poor and wanting help:
I cannot help you as I wish to do
Unless—they say that women are so quick—
Perhaps you know what I would have you know—
wish you for my wife."
Enoch Arden.

A glance at the agony columns of our daily newspapers, or the notice boards of police stations, it has been remarked, shows how many individuals disappear from home, from their business haunts, and from the circle of their acquaintances, and leave not the slightest trace of their whereabouts. In only too many instances, no satisfactory explanation has ever been forthcoming to account for a disappearance of this nature, and in the vast majority of cases no evidence has been discovered to prove the death of such persons. It is well known that "in France, before the Revolution, the vanishing of men almost before the eyes of their friends was so common that it scarcely excited any surprise at all. The only inquiry was, had he a beautiful wife or daughter, for in that case the explanation was easy; some one who had influence with the Government had designs upon the lady, and made interest to have her natural guardian put out of the way while those designs were being fulfilled." But, accountable as the disappearance of an individual was at such an unquiet time in French history, such a solution of the difficulty cannot be made to apply to our own country. Like other social problems, which no amount of intellectual ingenuity has been able to unravel, the reason why, at intervals, persons are missed and never found must always be regarded as an open question.

Thus a marriage is recorded which took place in Lincolnshire, about the year 1750. In this instance, the wedding party adjourned after the marriage ceremony to the bridegroom's residence, and dispersed, some to ramble in the garden and others to rest in the house till the dinner hour. But the bridegroom was suddenly summoned away by a domestic, who said that a stranger wished to speak to him, and henceforward he was never seen again. All kinds of inquiries were made but to no purpose, and terrible as the dismay was of the poor bride at this inexplicable disappearance of the bridegroom, no trace could be found of him. A similar tradition hangs about an old deserted Welsh Hall, standing in a wood near Festiniog. In a similar manner, the bridegroom was asked to give audience to a stranger on his wedding day, and disappeared from the face of the earth from that moment. The bride, however, seems to have survived the shock, exceeding her three score years and ten, although, it is said, during all those years, while there was light of sun or moon to lighten the earth, she sat watching—watching at one particular window which commanded a view of the approach to the house. In short, her whole faculties, her whole mental powers, became completely absorbed in that weary process of watching, and long before she died she was childish, and only conscious of one wish—to sit in that long high window, and watch the road, along which he might come. Family romance records, from time to time, many such stories, and it was not so very long ago that a bridal party were thrown into much consternation by the non-arrival of the bridegroom. Everything was in readiness, the clergy and the choir, already vested, stood in the robing room, crimson carpets were laid down from the door to the carriages; some of the guests were at the church and others at the bride's house, when an alarm was raised by the best man that the bridegroom could nowhere be found. The bride-expectant burst into a flood of tears at this cruel disappointment, especially when the ominous news reached the church that the bridegroom's wedding suit had been found in the room, laid out ready to wear, but that there was not the slightest clue as to his whereabouts. It only remained for the bridal party to return home, and for the dejected and disconsolate bride to lay aside her veil and orange-blossoms.

Sometimes, on the other hand, it is the bride who disappears at this crisis. Not many years back, an ex-lieutenant in the Royal Navy applied to a London magistrate, as he wanted to find his newly married wife. The applicant affirmed that the lady he had wedded was an actress, and that they were married at the registry office at Croydon. The magistrate asked if there had been any wedding breakfast. The applicant said "No"; they had partaken of a little luncheon and that was all. Mysterious and inexplicable as was this disappearance of a wife so shortly after marriage, it was suggested by the magistrate whether there were any rivals, but the applicant promptly replied, "No, certainly not, and that made the matter all the more incomprehensible." Of course, the magistrate could not recover the missing bride; but, remarking that the application was a very singular one, he recommended the applicant to consult the police on the matter, who replied that "he would do so, as he was really afraid that some mischief had happened to her," utterly disregarding the proposition of the magistrate as to whether the lady could not possibly have changed her mind, remarking that such a thing had occasionally happened.