30,000 New Yorkers Drop From Sight Yearly,
But Bureau of Missing Persons Locates Them
Amnesia, Fear, Love anti
Marital Difficulties
Among Causes
New York.—“Please find my hus
band” is an oft-repeated cry at New
York’s bureau of missing persons,
which locates all but 1,500 of the
10,000 people who disappear each
year. During 1936, for instance, 28,
000 New Yorkers vanished suddenly
and 5,000 out-of-towners were re
ported missing. Only 1,600 were
still unreported by the end of the
year, while 200 more were known
to be deceased. Children vanish
for dislike of school, fear of the
truant officer, love of adventure or
. . . just because it’s spring. Adults
flee marital difficulties, while aged
don't like to be dependent on young
children.
• ..Ii» lu
Patiently developed flies aid in locating missing persons. A detective
Is assigned to check bodies removed to the morgue against the list of
those reporting missing.
An alarm is sent via teletype machine for a newly reported missing
person, and the message is received simultaneously in every police sta
tion in New York city.
Giving New Color
to Dreary Room
*
By BETTY WELLS
Our Nellie is a lady, but she's
blonde a.iu very much alive. Right
now she’s thrilled to pieces over
what she's been doing with her
house.
Take that back hall, for instance.
An insipid looking spot it was, most
ly doors with just one decent wall
space Nellie papered it with silver
paper (it didn’t take so much be
cause of the small amount of wall
space, so she could afford metallic
paper even at the higher per-roll
figure). Then she painted the wood
work -don't gasp—brilliant Chinese
red. And did that nondescript little
room sit up and take notice! It
really acquired personality and
poise all in the same breath and
was literally "furnished” with col
or, which was important since there
really wasn't much space for fur
niture. Of course, this room re
quired a bit of living up to as far
as the adjoining rooms were con
cerned.
The guest room in pale greens and
grays got the loveliest cretonne,
yards and yards of it so flow
ered that it really seemed fra
grant. And the ground color of this
cretonne was white with splashy red
flowers for its design.
© By Betty Wells.—WNU Service.
Lynn Bari, Twentieth Century-Fox
starlet, wears a red, gray and black
plaid wool dress under a matching
tweed coat of gray and red. Epau
let pockets and cuffs, belt and col
lar of red suede on the coat are
matched in the narrow red suede
band on the mannish black felt hat.
TONIGHT’S BEDTIME STORY
By THORNTON W. Bl’RGESS
F COURSE, you know what a
plot is. It is a plan, a secret
plan, usually. Sometimes a plot is
very, very nice, as when you plan
to give someone a very pleasant
surprise. But a dark plot is a plan
to bring trouble to someone. Reddy
and Granny Fox are great plotters,
and their plots are always dark. Old
Man Coyote is an even greater plot
ter, and his plots are just as dark.
Very sly and very crafty are Reddy
and Giatiny Fox. but just a little
more sly and a wee bit more crafty
is Old Man Coyote. That is one
reason Reddy and Granny are
afraid of him.
So when he came out and told
them how foolish they were to quar
rel with Redtail the Hawk over Pe
ter Rabbit, because as long as he
stayed under the big pile of brush
where he was hiding he was safe,
and how much better it would be if
all four of them agreed upon a plan
which he had and which he was
sure would result in Peter being
caught by one of them, they looked
at him suspiciously. But Old Man
Coyote's tongue is very smooth,
very smooth. He said that he had a
plan which would give each an
equal chance to catch Peter Rabbit
and which would surely give one of
them a good dinner. Reddy and
Granny and Redtail thought it over
a little while and then they agreed.
They themselves couldn’t think of
any way by which they could reach
Peter, and they knew how very
smart and crafty Old Man Coyote is.
Old Man Coyote turned his head
aside to hide a grin as he pre
pared to tell the others what his
plan was. "It is very simple,” said
he. "There are four of us, and
there is only one pile of brush. I
will hide where I can watch one
side; Reddy Fox will hide where he
can watch another side; Granny
Fox will hide where she can watch
another side; and Redtail will watch
from a tree on the fourth side. All
we have to do is to be patient. Pe
ter will get hungry by and by.
“There is nothing to eat under
that pile of brush, and after a while
he will just have to come out. If
we all pretend that we have given
up trying to catch him and start off
just as if we were really going
away, he will think that we really
have gone. Then when he feels
quite sure that the way is clear he
will come out to try to get home
to the Old Briar Patch. He is just
as likely to come out one side as
another, and so each has just as
good a chance of catching him as
the others. I am quite willing that
you shall decide between you
which sides you will watch, and
I will take the one that is left. Now,
what do you say?”
It certainly sounded like a very
simple and perfectly fair plan, and
they all agreed that it was worth
trying. Reddy and Granny Fox
winked at each other very slyly
"*» *•••• f<n|
“It is very simple,” said he.
“There are four of us. and there is
only one pile of brush.”
and each understood what that wink
meant. If Reddy should catch Pe
ter he would divide with Granny,
and if Granny should catch Peter,
she would divide with Reddy. In
that way each felt sure of two
chances for a rabbit dinner to one
chance for each of the others. If
Old Man Coyote saw that wink, he !
didn't let them know it. He just I
sat down and politely waited for
the others to decide which sides
they would watch. When at last
they had agreed, all four pretend
ed to give up the hunt for Peter
and started off as if they really
intended to leave Peter alone.
And all the time underneath the
big pile of brush poor Peter Rabbit
sat with his heart going pit-a-pat
listening with all his might to hear
what he could of Old Man Coyote’s
dark plot. He couldn’t hear it all,
but he heard just enough to make
him feel sure that when they pre
tended to give up and go away they
really had done nothing of the kind.
What should he do? What could he
do?
© T. W Burgess.—WNU Service.
I AMAZE A MINUTE
_SCIENTIFACTS BY ARNOLD_
Extreme cold
OF HIGH ALTITUDES
Air from the
earth’s surface is chilled
OVER IOO°F IN RISING 3 MILES
HIGH, DUE TO LESSENED AT
MOSPHERIC PRESSURE.
'-■* ■* Radio use -
The average
RADIO SET IS IN
USE 4 HOURS
A DAY,
Reading anything - /j\
The blind can read
any book by /weans op
A NEW PHOTOCELL (=*(.V
WHICH CHANGES PRINT
DIRECTLY INTO RAISED LETTERS. (Copyright, by The Bell Syndic»te, Inc.)
All This Effort—
Then No Race!11
London.—Training hard for their
annual race against the ladies of
Cambridge, the Oxford women’s
crew is shown here during a recent
workout on the Thames. The photo
graph presents an interesting study
in varied expressions. Later the
Cambridge women announced they
can’t muster a crew this year St»
the race is off!
I Tt&yd
ADVENTURERS’ CLUB
HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES
OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF!
[ —-——— -- *
“The Trap”
By FLOYD GIBBONS
Famous Headline Hunter
Hello everybody:
Come on up here and shake hands with Arthur H.
Meyers of Middletown, N. Y. Art set out to catch some bears
once, and ended up by being the hunted one, himself. He
never realized how dangerous he was to the wild life of the
continent until he got a dose of his own medicine. Now he’s
beginning to think he’s a pretty tough bozo. And I—well—
I know doggone well he is.
In the summer of 1921 Art went up into Canada and established
himself as a trapper in the wilderness of northern Alberta, just south of
Great Slave lake. With him went Stan Sumpter, his pal and partner,
Art came back alone a year later, leaving Stan’s body on a wind
swept, snow-covered hillside. And Art himself? Well, he’s a
mighty lucky man. Otherwise he’d be lying there on that same
hillside beside his friend and partner, Stan.
It was a busy winter for the two lads up there in the wilderness. They
had two trap lines, running east and west from their base camp. Each
line was about 12 miles long and had several lean-to shacks strung
along them, where a man could spend the night. Stan took care of the
east line and Art the west. They would part early in the week and meet
up again at the base camp on Friday.
His Partner Didn’t Return to the Camp.
But there came a time when Art waited all one Friday afternoon for
Stan, and Stan didn’t show up. He didn’t put in appearance that
night, either, and by morning. Art began to be alarmed. He remem
bered then that Stan had said something about bears the week before.
It was around the first of March then, and Stan had reckoned they’d
soon be out of their winter hibernation and said he was going to set a few
bear traps. Had he run afoul of one of those bears and got hurt? Art
wondered.
It was hardly daylight when Art got up and set off down the east trap
line to see if he could find Stan. ”1 was almost frantic at his failure to
appear,” Art says. “Hour after hour I trudged along, keeping my eye
on the trail before me, always hoping to find a fresh footprint in the
Mh’tl—
He Had Stepped Into One of Stan’s Bear Traps.
snow or see Stan’s bulky form coming toward me. But none did I
find until late afternoon. Then I saw Stan’s track where he had left
the trail and headed for the base of a huge mountain, a quarter of a
mile away.
Art Found Stan Dead in the Snow.
“There were no tracks leading back, and I knew Stan couldn’t
have survived a night in the open. Also, I knew that those tracks .
had been made early the day before! Onward I tramped, search
ing the trail for something that would tell me my partner was still
alive. But instead 1 sighted Stan’s body lying in the snow.”
Art slipped off his snowshoes and started to run. “I was hoping
against the cold simple facts,” he says, "that there might be a spark
of life left in him. And then—when I was less than five feet from Stan’s
frozen figure—something leaped up out of the snow, gripped itself crush
ingly about my left leg and tossed me headlong in the snow.”
Art knew in a flash what had happened. He had stepped into one of
Stan’s spike toothed bear traps. The pain was almost unbearable
as the spikes bit deeper into the flesh. "The more I struggled,” he says,
"the harder those teeth ate into my leg. I looked across at Stan’s stiffened
body and caught sight of the huge bear trap that gripped his leg—saw the
contorted expression of abject misery on his frozen features. Then I
began to think of my own predicament. If I didn’t free myself in the
next few hours, I too, would be a twisted, frozen thing like Stan.”
Caught Foot in the Bear Trap.
Already, Art’s leg was growing numb. He pushed the loose snow
aside and saw that a stick of wood, caught in the jaws, had prevented
them from fully closing. Only that had saved his leg from being snapped
like a match stick. He tried to pry the huge jaws of the trap apart. He
couldn’t. He began to wonder how Stan could have been so thoughtless
as to stumble into one of his own traps. Then he thought of the pack
strapped on his back. Sometimes he carried a short, three-cornered
file there, for rubbing off the rough edges of steel traps.
Frantically, Art began tearing at his pack, while each twist
ing movement sent a twinge of pain shooting through his leg. He
got the pack loose—spread it out in the snow before him. Piece
by piece, he dumped out its contents, and his heart sank as no file
fell on the snow. In desperation, he plunged his hand inside. It
touched steel! The file! In spite of the excruciating pain, Art
shouted for joy.
Then he began filing the steel. It was a slow, arduous task. Every
movement—every stroke of the file—meant agonizing misery. But it
meant life, too—and freedom. For an hour and a half he sawed away
at the hard steel. For an hour and a half he groaned and sweated. Then,
at last, the jaws fell apart, and Art lay in the snow—gasping—barely
conscious.
How Art ever managed to get to his feet he doesn’t know. He did,
though. And after that he dragged himself half a mile, to one of the
shacks along the trap line. "I spent the night there,” he says, “and
then managed to get to the base camp, where I stayed until my leg healed.
Though I lost a swell partner and nearly lost my own life, the woods still
hold a fascination for me. And then, too, ladies still wear furs.”
Copyright.—WNU Service.
Porcupine’s Quills
The porcupine’s quill equipment
Is indeed the secret of its survival.
It has no speed, no keenness of eye
sight or smell, no cunning, but it
does have between 20,000 and 40,
000 daggers, each more poisonous
than the sting of a wasp. The point
of each quill is polished and very
keen. Then come the barbs, over
a thousand of them, which begin to
stick out when they enter warm
flesh, like the barbs on a fish hook.
Oman and Muscat
Oman is the small Arab princi
pality at the southeast extremity of
the Arabian peninsula, partly on the
Persian gulf and partly on the Ara
bian sea. Muscat is the capital. The
Sultan is subsidized by the govern
ment of India.
A Tropical Virgin Forest
The Luquillo range is Puerto Ri
co’s example of a tropical virgin
forest. It is junglelike in density
and variety of trees, vines and
shrub life.
Cuts Wire for Aid
When a lone settler or traveler
In the vast, uninhabited sections of
Australia is sick, lost or in any
other kind of serious trouble, he is
permitted to cut a telegraph wire,
an act which is a call for help, says
Collier’s Weekly. Linemen imme
diately ascertain, through electric
instruments, where the cut was
made, often hundreds of miles
away, and set out at once with food,
water and first-aid equipment.
When S. C. Ratified Constitution
The federal Constitution was rati
fied at Charleston, S. C., by a con
vention of delegates meeting from
May 12 to 24, 1788, by a vote of 149
to 73. This convention was called
by the legislature.
The Happy Man
That man is happy whom nothing
makes less strong than he is; he
keeps to the heights, leaning upon
none but himself; for one who sus
tains himself by any prop may fall
—Seneca.