Delaware State journal and statesman., 1869-05-18
Runnl : A@4.


A parallel to the celebrated 'eke i1ys-
terry has just been brought 10 li8Ht Is tue
discovery OF missing Aalnr clh gsaihan "A
IN London. rne Reverend sir as-..s, u
will be remembered % pia lef e. i
nome witnoul assign 4ea .-gsa, Asa, siier
all Grsat Bfiseln tiHs! d slla aaeh ih
turmoil over mis- disAppeai a4e4, q acuv-
cred iu a distant l,arl ui .ls Nias4aaa,
GU sed as droyer. He seemed 10 be s.ie,
and no satisfactory explanation oi uis vaga-
ry was ever made puo.ie. Tue Amepcuu
case is strangely similar. MIR. EdniQ IL.
Cotton, agent OF the Adams Express Com
pany at Springfield, Mass, lett lne house OF
friend in 9th street, New York, on the 2ltn
of December, 1857, and from that lims all
traces o him was lost. His accounts with
tue company were found to be correct 10 tue
last cent, and no motive could be coDjec-
tured for his voluntary disappearance. All
available means to tind him we're exhausted.
At last, on the goth Of April, 1859, en ac-
quaintance met him, dressed as a sailor,
Wis ting the Tower of London. de gave
history of his adventures, but no oxyiana-
ton OF his sudden deseruon OF vile, friends,
and country. The day OF his disappearance
he had taken passage tor Glasgow under an
assumed name. He wandered about Eng
land Tor several weeks, aud then shipped as
seaman on board vessel bound iOr san
/ francisco. Thence he sailed to Calcutta,
and from Calcutta TO London. He knew of
tho excitement caused by his disappearance.
but expressed no intention Of coming home.
OF course there may be circumstances
both in the Speke and the COltOncase which
have been concealed from the public; but
why should we doubt 4thet sane men are
driven sometimes, by an impulse they cam
moi explain or analYz0, TO break out OF the
routlne Of Il monotonous life and plunge into
a new worldY When knighthood died, tho
vague unrest OF chlvalrie adventure survived,
When the anchoritism of the desert went out
OF fashion, there still remained in the human
bosom that Yearning tor solitude, that irre-
! sistible desire to break away from the beaien
path, which sometimes drove men 10 fee
from family and trieuds into the solitude OF
the rhebaid, or the seelusion OF the monas-
tory. AS the world grows older, wewals
more and more closely i'll one anolher's foot
steps, the grooves get deeper, and it Is mar
der TO escape from them. But every now
and then impulse gets the bsuer Of reasou,
+ and grown men, respectable clergymen,
, fathers OF families, play truant llks sch4o
r boys, and perhaps hardly know Themselves
b why they do it, or wbat they run a.dy
y lromi unless 1t be the weerying Necessity o.
repeating Tomorrow just what they dit
yesterday aud to-day. When we are puz
70 zled over mysterious disappearaness FpNil
- be wise 10 remember how often people dc
), strange things without any distinct motive
"A do them, IN fact merely because they ar'
- strange things and they aie tiied ot neiul
reasonable. II such men had beeu differ
st emily placed in 1ie they might nave w9l
IN tame as daring pioneers or adventarOAs tx
M plorers Mr.. Spoke, with his brotucrs op
I'd porfunlties, might have opened suotne
al Wilderness; MIR. Cotton might nave been
second Capt Cook. But acelceui-Iwnlc
:. is only another name for Provldenca--mhI
le the one cleik and the other d cul ate, au
p SO they are likely to be rememheTe3C us
u are remembered at all) rs "queerh pers0ns
d, u OF whom 1t may be au open question wne,a
~ er tneY were llule ciecke liite wGk-l