New-York tribune., 1905-02-12

Mr.. Lang has disclosed virtue which has
done more than anything else to make him an
ideal mystery monger-he has loved best the
apparently insoluble problems. There are four
teen cases discussed in the volume before US
and the veil is not completely lifted from any
one of them. That, maintain is OF itself a
source of charm. Only rich in the sense
of humor, it may be added, could content him
self with such an array of unfinished stories
Your humorless author could nothing prof
liable in addressing himself to the Sphinx un-
less he were sure of getting answers to his ques-
tions. Mr.. Lang realizes that it does not alto
gether matter whether you solve the riddle or
not; the fun lies in attempting to solve it, in
playing the game for its own sake and with
no more concern for Il reward than is perhaps
inseparable from the weakness of poor human
nature OF course. he would like to know, as
would all like to know, the precise truth
about the various famous personages with
whom he deals; but his inability to state the
truth conclusvely has not kept him from
joyng the writing of his book, and it certainly
does not diminish our pleasure in reading it
For thing, the truth about some of these
mysteries might rob the latter if it were known
of certain glamour which we could Ill spare.
Take for example, the case of Elizabeth Can
ming, the first to be examined in this volume.
She lived in Aldermanbury, In the middle of
the eighteenth century. AS a child she had
suffered an accident which caused her in after
years to be Subject to fits Of Inconsistencies
on any alarm" She was good girl, and when
she disappeared on New Years Day, 1853. her
people quite sure that she had done moth
ing discreditable. 1.-The character of La Pu-
ceIe" says Mr.. Lang "was not more stainless
than Elizabet1's." When she turned up again.
nearly a month later in her mothers house
bleeding, bowed double, Iivid, ragged with a
cloth about her head, and clad in a dirty dress
ing jacket and filthy. draggled petticoat," it
was with an extraordinary tale of having been
attacked by two men beneath the shadow of a
dead wall by Bedlam. in Moorfields. robbed and
then imprisoned in a house which was in due
course identified as that of an unedifying dame
called Mother Wells. There was an inyestiga
ton by the authorities. certain gypsy folk were
brought to trial, and the Wells woman was
branded on the hand for the share she was he
lieved to have borne in what everybody regard
ed as abominable kidnapping enterprise
Nevertheless, EliZabeth's story was received in
some quarters with much skepticism that as
early as April 2S, 1854. she found herself on
trial for "wilful and corrupt perjury" She was
| convicted and sentenced to be banished to
| New-Engiard for seven years. On the surface
! the case seems simple enough. Her story was
false, the reader might infer; it was invented to
! cover up something, and she was Justly pun
| ished for her misconduct But, as matter of
| feet the records as MIR. Lang analyses them.
only go to show that the lawyers made a mess
of the whole business; that Elizabeth was. as
has been said. good girl, and that neither she
nor any Of her contemporaries was able to give
a really satisfactory account of what happened
to her from the time she disappeared to the time