The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-04-09
SEVERAL PERSONS DISAPPEAR EACH
 DAY IN NEW YORK
Records Show That 60,000 Girls Are Lost Each Year in the United States.
 Many Youths
By E. T. ELLISON Special Dispatch to The Age Herald (Copyright, 1929, by The Age -Hernidl

ANOpAflBHNts AbeN. ny Ahe AEe-hefattuj
 New York, April Slight per sons went out for walk in various parts of Brooklyn one day recently, and never came back. None of the eight was known to any of the others. Nobody could imagine why they van- ished how or whither.
 Except the missing person bureau of the New York pohce department. The bureau, from past experience. knows pretty well why people dis appear and how. The places whither they disappear are generally discov- cred by the bureau sooner or later
 To lose track of eight people in one day is nothing unusual. It has been estimated that 60,000 girls disappear annually in the United States, and If only few of them are traced 1t is because only few cities have a missing person bureau. There are 40. 000 unidentified dead buried in the United States each year. In New York city alone, from the spring of 1920 to the spring of 1921, 2,l00 persons dropped out of sight. Between March, 1921, and March, 1922, the number ran over 2,20o. The bureau locates or accounts for 9S per cent of the van ished.
 iC0AA As-Vf tHC buA Ndu ndHuiNd 13,000 missing person cases; the bulk of them being inquiries sent from all over the country. New York. the biggest city in the world, Is the fa- vorite place in which to disappear. If the cases of desertion by husbands or wives were handled through the bureau, the total of those missing would rise enormously.
 Most "WiIfully MIssing''
 Most of the people who disappear are "wilfully missing" Not an ac- cident nor white slavery nor murder is the average reason The missing person is angry or frightened or dis satisfied with home conditions.
 From 10 to 20 is the foolish age and most of the missing persons come be- tween those years. June is the popu- lar month for running away, and the chief reason Is trouble over school examinations with home friction a close second. Around circus and world series times. boys also vanish in dozens. Between 20 and 30 years, the number of missing people Is mo- ticeably less and 1t decreases by de- cades until the fewest-even fewer than in the years between 1 and 10-- are those persons between 90 and 100. Yet the bureau las occasionally been asked to find people who were over 90. The man or youth is con- siderably fonder of disappearing than the woman or girl, though more than 500 New York girls have been known to vanish in three years.
 The bureau of missing persons. of which Capt. John H. Ayers Is director, not only hunts up the missing but also identifies the unknown dead, un- known people rendered unconscious ffa Aus. fe ,4fa z sia. The bureau was enlarged to in clude the unidentified dead because Timothy J. Sullivan. the political magnate, who had been killed by d railroad train, lay unidentified in the Fordham morgue for nine days. Capt. Grant Williams, now retired. who was given the task of enlargement and reorganization, installed an amazingly thorough card catalog by which people who come under the missing person classification are checked up several times day. Captain Williams also listed the marks of all the laundries in Greater New York, so that "by looking inside a mans collar you can tell his name and address" Running through the card catalog. Captain Williams once identified 172 out of 635 unidentified persons without even leaving his desk.
 Faith In Finger Prints
 It is interesting to know that the reorganized missing person bureau had on it's staff the first policewoman in the country Mrs. Mary E. Ham ilton, now an aid on the staff of Police Commissioner Enright Mrs. Hamilton places her faith in finger prints. I'd like to see a law com polling every man, woman and child to be finger printed" she said today, mot only native born, but also the immigrants, and not simply as a measure against criminals, but as an ordinary preeaution and convenience If We had such a law, there would be few missing persons, practically no unidentified dead. and no helpless victims of aphasia. for mans finger prints would be the necessary link"
 Captain Williams is for finger prints plus national missing per- son bureau. With such a bureau" he declared, it would be almost im- possible for anyone to disappear or to be buried without Identification. As to the eight people disappearing from Brooklyn--I'ye known 30 to drop out of sight In Brooklyn in one day. There have been 90 unidentified New York dead on the list at once in one May there were 9S drowned persons found, and from 3 to Bow cry unfortunates are discovered dead in doorways any unusually cold win ter morning. Missing people can usually make themselves known if they please. The dead have no re- dress and hundreds of graves in New York potter's field are filled by un- identified dead who, through finger prints and national bureau. could have been Identified"