The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1909-08-30
WHY PEOPLE DISAPPEAR
Many Wander Just to Get Away From
Themselves

|
On can hardly scan a paper now
without reading a notice about some
man or woman who has suddenly dis
appeared. Yet many of these cases
do not find their way into the news
papers.
The police know more than the pub
lie about the numbers of people who
are reported missing by taeir rela-
tives and friends. And it is no new
phase of social life. For years peo-
pie have gone wandering away from
their home circles and most of them
have never come back.
What is the secret of these missing
IpeOple? What are the hidden causes
which prompt them to steal away
from all that saould be dear to them
in life-from their own little world
Of duty and pleasure, family and
friends?
The answer Is not TO be found in
the cynical assumption that most OF
them have excellent reasons for dis
appearing.
The remarkable thing about many
of these missing men and women is
that they have been as far as gener-
lal knowledge goes entirely respecta-
BILE, that they have not been deeply
embarrassed financially, and that they
have been leading quiet, steady lives
outwardly happy and not burdened
with more of those cares than most
of us carry in our pack.
1t is this which makes these cases
so battling and mysterious. The pub
lie and the police demand a motive
What has he been up to-" they say,
aud await revelations. They look for
a clew and when they find hat and
coat by the riverside or on the sea
beach the clew seems clear enough,
though no body is found.
The wife is examined and she poor
soul can only say My husband had
nothing to worry him. He was al
ways devoted to the children and good
to me-" Or n distracted father says
MY daughter was OF the happiest dis
position. am sure she had no Sc
cret love affairs. Some terrible ac-
cldent must have happened to her
But the truth is that in many OF
these cases OF missing people there is
no motive recognized in the .philos-
ophv OF policeman. The secret is
psychological
If we do but think little we must
admit that in all our hearts there is
at times 4 strange restlessness which
we do not understand and could not
Iexplain. We have longing 10 get
laway" anywhere and anyhow. 1t is
this natural instinct which has made
our travellers and explorers. II is
this "wandergeist" which makes many
men of today-sporting men, journal
lists, fiddling fellows. music hall
turns" the tramps on the highways
of life-go wandering always. from
one city to another, from one country
to another, unable to settle down or
to stay long in one place. They want
to get away from the familiar things
of life to the unfamiliar. They want
still more to escape from themselves
That is one of the strongest in
! stincts in nature or at least in human
Psychologist desire to escape. II
Is the secret of much of the fretful-
ness and restlessness of modern life,
for with many of us it is a thwarted
instinct. 1t is 50 difficult to get away
so difficult to escape from the self
OF which we are very tired.
In the old days it was easier. TIE
routine of like was not so iron bound.
But now many men and women, mil
lions of them, are prisoners, as it
were, in narrow cells. Responsibility
has swallowed them up and cramped
their limbs the respectable. middle
class life of getting TO an office every
. Of Ia. hxr ha
! same train, of meeting the same peo-
pie with the same ideas.
The instinct of escape breaks out
sometimes in surprising ways, and
among people most content as ii
seemed, with tne humdrum routine.
For instance a domestic servant who
had lived a model responsibility for
twenty years with an old maiden lady,
suddenly rebelled against her narrow
life and escaped with the grocer's
young man.
But there are some people, poets,
perhaps, though they have never
written verse. and philosophers,
though they have not read Herbert
| Spencer. who become too introspec-
tive by brooding in the secret cham
bers of their own heart. Their fam
| lily and friends do not know of theii
ceaseless self cummings; outfardly
they live an ordinary life; inwardly
they are morbidly excited and pro
| foundly troubled.
They have made a failure of life,
perhaps. Their ambitions have been
scattered and their dreams dissolved.
Religion gives no answer to tneir
questionings There is nothing new
for them or satisfying in literature.
The world has been too hard on them
and their life is wearisome and they
are sick of that self in which they
have lived too much.
They want to wipe tne slate clean
and begin all over again. They want
to get away 1t becomes a morbid,
haunting thought 1t grows stronger
and more obsessing. but they hide II
as a guilty thing from those who sit
opposite at table, or from their bed
fellows. The little things of life are
done mechanically They seem quite
sane and level headed But all the
while there is a voice calling them
to come away-somewhere, anyhow.
They must escape!
And so one day the respectable
.gNAf 70 h