It has produced an extraordinary crop of stories of outrage
and disappearance. Most of the former are incoherent, being the recollections of people who were obviously very drunk when the events which they think occurred either did or did no't occur ; but one or two of the latter are very strange. One gentleman writes to say that his son, aged 20, went for a walk from Regent Street at 2 p.m., on July 4, 1865, and never returned. He had no money, there was no reason for flight, and be was a man unlikely to leave his mother in suspense. In answer to advertisements, the writer one day received a letter signed "Bennett," saying his son had gone 1,000 miles up the Mississippi, and warning him to give nothing to an informer who would call on him. Nobody called, and the American police ascertained the falsehood of the Mississippi story. The murder of a man without money is unlikely, and the few facts given suggest a theory that the lad made a low marriage, is still in London, and wrote the letter signed " Bennett" to warn his father against some one who, knowing the facts, intended to cheat him of his money.
