DRESSED AS A BOY

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8355, 15 February 1913, Page 11

DRESSED AS A BOY

SURPRISING ADVENTURE OF A GIRL OF FOURTEEN. CLOTHES DID NOT PIT. LONDON, _ January 5. The story of a young girl of fourteen, who fled to Portsmouth from Chichester disguised as a boy, was told to the Chichester Bench, and as a result. Miss Edith Cates was sent to a reformatory school till the age of nineteen. Edith had been brought up as a nurse-child by a family named Arnell, in Church road, and has lately gone out as a day girl. On December 27th, while the Amelia were out, she broke open boxes and drawers in the house with some tools belonging to one of the young men, and stole £8 in money, a watch, and a couple of chains, a suit of boy’s clothes, a toy revolver, and other articles. At first it was supposed the house had been burgled, and the police were so informed by the Arnells, but investigations proved otherwise. According to the girl’s own story, subsequently told to the police, after breaking open the boxes she cut her hair short, dressed in boy’s clothes, and went to Portsmouth, but finding “it did not fit much,” she returned to Chichester, bought some girl’s clothing again at a shop in St. Pancras, changed back to a girl in a lane, and threw away her boy’s attire. However that may be, on the evening of the 27th she went to a Mrs Fremantle, in York and told an extraordinary story about having been sent there from a local cinematograph theatre. She cried and asked Mrs Fremantle to take her in for a day or two, and gave her 18s Id. She explained that she had just left a place, in High street, Portsmouth, and wanted to get work at Chichester, and that the money she handed over had been given her as wages in Portsmouth. When the police traced her to the house and the girl herself happened to go to the door she at first denied all knowledge of the Arnells’ address, said her name was Fremantle, and in support of this assertion produced Mrs Fremantle’s rent-book. Afterwards, when the sergeant charg ed her, she snatched a watch from the mantelpiece, and said, “That is all I took.” Then, as he was looking at the watch, she snatched a knife from the mantelpiece and said she would kill herself, so that he had to struggle with her to get the knife away. The child, who cried a great deal in the dock, admitted taking the things. She was given a very bad character by the Arnells. They had always had trouble with her, it was stated, and she had stolen things from childhood. Only throe weeks ago, on hearing from her mistress that she had absconded, two of the Arnells had searched for her all the evening, and on returning home found her in a hedge near the house with her apron tied over her mouth and her garters round her arms. She declared that a man on a bicycle did this, but afterwards admitted that she did it herself because she had run away from her place.