POSING AS MEN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3944, 18 May 1929, Page 3

POSING AS MEN.

Many remarkable cases are on record of women posing as men — sometimes for the greater part of a lifetime (says the “London Daily Chronicle”). One of the most striking is that of Dr. M. V. Mayfield, an Englishwoman, living in Arkansas, who successfully masqueraded as a man frolm childhood and earned a great local imputation as a surgeon. It was only when she 'became seriously ill that her sex was discovered. Her explanation was that her parents had started her in life under false colours because they wanted to protect their interests under a will.

At the age of eighty-two, a woman living in America confessed that for sixty years, under the name of “Charles Warner,” she had posed as a man, earning her livelihood hy painting and papeuhanging. Her story was that when her husband died, and she was left with an aged mother to support, she found that a woman’s wage was insufficient, and so decided to adopt the role of the man.

For forty-six years a Durham woman, Mary Cunninghalme, lived a life of adventure in the wild NorthWest of Canada, under the name of “Henry Langley.” Langley fought with Indians, trapped wild animals on the Hudson, and was said to have served with 'the North-West Police.

The death in Westminster Infirmary in 1924 of, a woman brought to light the fact that for ten years she had been earning her living- as a man, first as a cellarmen and then as a waiter, under the name of “Ernest Wood.”' She “walked out” with another girl. “Charley W|ilson” is a famous instance of a woman masquerading as a man. S'he 'figured in sonic unpublished MiS'S, left by Charles Reade, the novelist, at his death. “Charley,” whose real -name was Catherine Coomibe, was married at the age of sixteen; separated from her husband three years later, and decided to earn her own living as a man. This she did for over forty years, seventeen of which were spent at sea. She courted and “married” three women, living with the first for five years, the second for twenty-two years, and The third for about twelve months. Distinction and honours were achieved by Dr. James Barry, M.D., a woman in the guise of a man, who entered the Army medical service as hospital assistant in 1813. At her death in 1865, at the age of se-venty-one, she was Inspector-Gen-eral of Army Hospitals. Marie le Roy passed for twentylive years as “Harry Lloyd” at Enfield; and for five years, for a wager, Miss Elena Smith, carried on business in New York as “Mr. A. L. Martinez.”

Jmst recently the papers were full of the amazing revelations in connection with the life of “Captain Barker,” and a few days ago the cables reported the deathbed confession of Deresley Morton, a New Zealand woman, who died in Oakland, California, that she had been masquerading as a man for twenty vealrs.