IN MASQUERADE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1978, 14 January 1907, Page 1

IN MASQUERADE.

A woman who has masqueraded for thirty years as a policeman in Seville, Spain, and whose sex was only discovered as tho result of an accident by which she fractured her leg, told the correspondent of a London newspaper that she had always gone by tiie name of Fernando Mackenzie, her father being English and her mother Spanish. She was born in France, came to Spain in 1876, at the age of 35, and contrived to enter the Madrid police force disguised as a mail. She married there, and pretended that her wife’s child was her own son. She removed to Seville, still serving as a policeman, and was engaged there as a cook and orderly at the Governor’s palace at the old Convent of San Pablo, which was burnt last July. She served seven successive governors, and only lost her situation through the fire,* the Governor removing to an hotel. In consequence of the discovery of her sex, she has been discharged from the police without the pension due to her, and is now a helpless cripple and in great distress. . When recently seen she was in a miserable room, sitting in a broken choir facing a large image of Christ, tho only treasure she lias left. She said that her “wife” lied two years ago, and a neighbour stated that “Fernando” spent all she possessed in the woman's funeral. Her alleged soil has never been seen since the deatli of the mother. Mackenzie has a soft voice, a. refined face, and delicato features, and was neatly dressed in male attire. Asked howsho escaped detention so long, she replied that she always lived quietly in her own house with her “wife,” and did her duty hv her employers, so that litt one meddled with her* She owed rent, and feared eviction, her beloved imago being her last resource. She was speechless with gratitude for a small gift of money, and then turned in an ecstasy of thanks to the image.