The neighborhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised
with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel
to those of what was known to the writers of headlines
and "The Kensington Horror," or "The Stabbing Woman,"
or "The Woman in Black." During the past two or three days
several cases have occurred of young children straying from
home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath.
In all these cases the children were too young to give any
properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus
of their excuses is that they had been with a "bloofer lady."
It has always been late in the evening when they have
been missed, and on two occasions the children have
not been found until early in the following morning.
It is generally supposed in the neighborhood that,
as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away
that a "bloofer lady" had asked him to come for a walk,
the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served.
This is the more natural as the favorite game of the little
ones at present is luring each other away by wiles.
A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots
pretending to be the"bloofer lady" is supremely funny.
Some of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in
the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture.
It is only in accordance with general principles of human
nature that the "bloofer lady" should be the popular role
at these al fresco performances. Our correspondent naively
says that even Ellen Terry could not be so winningly attractive
as some of these grubby-faced little children pretend,
and even imagine themselves, to be.
There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question,
for some of the children, indeed all who have been missed
at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat.
The wounds seem such as might be made by a rat or a small dog,
and although of not much importance individually, would tend
to show that whatever animal inflicts them has a system
or method of its own. The police of the division have been
instructed to keep a sharp lookout for straying children,
especially when very young, in and around Hampstead Heath,
and for any stray dog which may be about.