GIRL WITH "A CHANGING SKIN."

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3933, 27 February 1884, Page 4

GIRL WITH "A CHANGING SKIN."

Thero lives at the present time in the town of Springfield, America, a young girl who, if what is related concerning her by the local papers bo true, would be a valuable addition to the show of any Barnum fortuytito enough to acquire hey. Sho-is a

mulatto, or ought to be ; but it seems that the colour of the skin is constantly varying from dark brown to snowy white, then changing back again to its natural colour. This extraordinary young person is the daughter of a workman in easy circumstances, and it is seriously said that there is no imposture practised. The transition is is accomplished by the appearance of successive white spots on the skin, which gradually cover the whole surface. A reporter of an American paper, who has visited the girl, describes her appearance during tho unaccountable transformation as most striking, ono of her feet being at times as dark as it is natural for a coloured girl's to be, whilst the other is as white as a lily. So with the hands and the face—the effect of tho latter produced by the different hue of the skin being most singular. Sometimes the whole face is white, excepting the eyelids, which retain their original colour; but quite as often the face is entirely brown, the eyelids alone being white, which, when the lids are closed, gires tho girl a most " unearthly, startling appearance." The phenomenon has been examined by all the medical men in the vicinity, but the mystery, if mystery it is, and not imposture, baffles them.