A Curious Discovery.

Manawatu Herald, 22 August 1896, Page 3

A Curious Discovery.

+ In " Hart's Army List for 1895," lays the Admiralty and Horse Guards Gazette, the name of James Barry, M.D., stands at the head of the list of inspectors general of hospitals. la the July of the same year his death was announced, and the next day it was officially reported to the Horse Guards that the doctor was a woman. It is singular that neither the black valet, who had lived with her for years, had the vaguest notion of her secret. This lady, said to have been the legitimate granddaughter of a Scotch earl, is surmised to have adopted male attire, and the medical profession from attachment to an army surgeon. While staff surgeon to the Gape garrison she successfully treated the Governor, Lord Charles Somerset, fought a duel, and was considered to be of a most quarrelsome disposition. The doctor was frequently guilty of flagrant breaches of discipline, and on more than one occasion was pent home under arrest. The late Earl of Albermarle relates in his reminiscences that on sitting next to her at mess, he noticed that " a certain effeminacy in his manner, which he teemed to be arways striving to overcome, while his style of conversation was greatly superior to that one unusually heard at a mess-table in the days of the non-coinpetitive examinations."