GIRL’S STRANGE ROLE

Otaki Mail, 1 August 1923, Page 4

GIRL’S STRANGE ROLE

BOGUS PRINCESS’ ADVENTURES. STORY OP THE PRINCESS ! CARABOO. 11l the early days of the nineteenth century Dr Wilkinson, of Bath, was well known as a kindly and humane i man. It was unto natural, therefore, that Ills servant should call hint out of his study one wet evening, when a young' '■ woman was found, cold and dripping 1 , 1 upon his doorstep—and a young wo--1 man, moreover, who could speak not ■ ; one word of English. (j j Slie was a strangely picturesque flgi me, this young foreigner, pretty and slim and appealing', with great dark eyes, an olive skin, and with vivid fead ; tilers and flowers twisted into he long, 0 ! black hair. : She wore a single, brightly coloured j garment, and strings of barbaric beads round her neck, together with a chain i of twisted sold. She pointed to these continually. repealing the words,, i l "Jessee Maunduee.” (■ i El- Wilkinson was vastly intrigued. This awas something unusual in the . j quiet life of fashionable Bath. He *• took the girl into his house, provided her with food and clothes, and tried r to smooth her timidity and discover her name and ra.ee. But signs were her only known language, although she talked incessantly in an unintelligible tongue, which sounded rather like Hindu, By signs, then, the doctor at last discovered that tho girl was called I Caraboo, and that she was a Princess in her own land, the island of Javasu, where Jessee Maunduee, her father, reigned as King. Dr Wilkinson also gathered by degrees that the pretty princess had been captured by pirates, carried across tire seas, and finally jumper overboard and swarn ashore when they came in sight of land—arriving finally, try this means, at Bath, and tlie house of the good-liearted doctor. A i'BEYER DECEPTION. News of the interesting stranger j spread rapidly, for Dr Wilkinson had I many friends in Bath and Bristol and I limy all cam© to visit the savage Princess. She would not wear Ihe sophisticated clothes which the doctor provided; she would cat nothing except 4 frogs and fish, and these must be I fresh and raw. Once a. week she went 9 up into a. little room under the roof, 5 and worshipped the sun. which she Li called Allah Tallah. j The doctor discovered that she could j write, and provided her with pens and J paper. Sitting upon a mat, she cov- *'”* mcl sheet after shee t with fine script which seemed oddly European in formation and .ret conformed to lio ; | known language. Dr Wilkinson and his friends from Bristol and Bath pored over the pages, and could make nothing; of them; then they were sent to the most learned scholars of both Oxford and Cambridge—with the same result. The girl's beauty and sweetness of expression, her gentleness and timidity drew people to see her from all over the district. Several wealthy ladies of f Bristol wished to adopt her. and gave her money and trinkets; she was grateful, but she made no attempt to ■ learn to speak English, or to communicate except by signs. * Caraboo had one fashion. She loved . to fence with the weapons in Dr Wil- f kinson’s collection, using sword and | dagger after the mediaeval fashion, j B one in each, hand. f After the Princess had been a won- & der for considerably more than nine -■ days, suddenly and without warning, I she disappeared—and when a hue and ’i cry was raised to discover tier wlierec a bouts a good deal more was diseoverI ed than either Dr Wilkinson or his | frineds had desired. 3 ' For it was proved beyond Hie possi- | bilily of a doubt that Caraboo was an j | imposter—probably one of Hie clever- t I est frauds on record, as her past his- J Tory showed as well as her latest ad- 5 venture. Q SERVANT GIRL’S MASQUERADE. £ Her real name was Mary Baker, and she had been born in 1732 at the little Devonshire village of Withe ridge, her father and mother being respectable labouring people. What remains as so extraordinary is From childhood the child had been wild and strange. Her mother taught her to card and spin wool, and, in the summer. she was employed by a , j neighbouring farmer to weed the fields, but from the first, Mary cared only for boyish occupations, wandering half-naked through the woods, and swimming iike a fisli in every pond and stream. that, in spite of this running wiid. Hie girl somehow acquired a knowledge of human nature and human habits, which enabled her to play many parts—and play them well—in the years which followed. Mrs Baker soon despaired of Mary as a useful member of society. As the ; girl would not help her in the house or garden, her mother got a place for her as domestic servant in Exeter, but she ran away after a few days, and embarked upon a series of the meet amazing adventures. Mary Baker must really have been !one of the- greatest amateur actresses the world has ever known. She rarely begged outright; that would have been inartistic. She pepeuderi rather upon her prettiness and her pathos to excite pity and and gain help, food and money. In this way she was assisted during her wanderings by many private persons, by the j Strangers’ Friends’ Society, and by the J chaplain of a London hospital, where she was carried when seized with fever. This chaplain found her a situation as servant, which she accepted gratefully, and left very soon after. For Mary had come to the conclusion that life in service was too dull to be endured —at any rate as a girl. She put on man’s dress, and actually took the place of footman in her own native i village of Wltheridge. at a large house near to her father’s cottage. Here she remained for a long time without he- , ing discovered by her parents, for the future Princess Caraboo possessed the extraordinary art of so altering her i features as will as to be utterly timecognlsable. After several years of a footman’s < life, Mary was sent one winter’s day < in a message to a village some miles J away, and was overtaken by a terrible C snowstorm. Overwhelmed in a drift, she was nearly frozen to death, and < only rescued .inst in time by some / country people, who look her to their J collage. Jn their efforts to revive her. j. her sex was discovered —ana once c more Mary ran away in search ot fur- i ther adventures. < ADVENTURES IN SCOTLAND. f She found them lilis time ill Scot- t land, where she played the part of a ) pretty ‘war widow," saying that Iter S uusbaint had been killed in Hie Napolc onic wars, and giving her up me pa > Mrs Mackrinkam. She held various - \ sHiations, provided by people who took j V pity os her apparent helplessness, ana

! sympathised as patriotic Scots, with her assumed nationality, j For —and hero is where her clover I :I ..-S is so amazing- - liiis Devonshire gin who had never before been across the Border, managed to speak With ■ the Border, managed to speak with l such ail unimpeachable Scottish ue--1 cent that she deceived all who met j lier. i After a year or two -Mary wearied i of Scotland, and set off towards the South again, tramping tile road n sleeping under hedges or in hayricks but often obtaining' comfortable slid - I ter by means of those appealing eve' ; of liers. : It was in ibis way that she reached j Bath. and suddenly formed ill - i scheme of impersonating tlio Cannibal j Princess, Caraboo —a scheme wh?cli t succeeded so well that, oven alter her exposure as a fraud, many people refused to believe that Mary Baker amt Caraboo were one and the same perHcr part, as we have soon, was sustained amazingly well. The language which she talked was not mere gibberish —so many scholars aflirmed but something' which had definite words and plmtscs* and sounds, though they must have been of her own invention. And tlie same must be sa. . of her written language; it could no. have been obviously rubbish, since it deceived the learned students of the two Universities, How this girl obtained the requisite knowledge :s a marvel, since she hue. ' practically no education, ami since she set out to deceive not ignorant and easily-duped people, but a society ol clever and well-read melt and worm n. When the imposture was discovered, as wo have said. Princess Caraboo - vanished —and so did .Mrs Muckrinkam, Mary Baker, and all the otlvi aliases which she assumed. After the left Bath in the chaiacb i of the -avago Princess no more vv - over heard of her. That she plfi.vt fi many future parts vv- can scarcely doubt., for -Mary had surely as many fives- -and as many roles—as a cat. But as Caraboo, the lovely savage si,.. Uniters iB" the limelight for o;t« brief moment —and Hum disappears.--B. Met hley. in the Seedsman."