GIRL IN SOLDIER’S UNIFORM.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 104, 3 May 1916, Page 5

GIRL IN SOLDIER’S UNIFORM.

Maud Butler, th e seventeen-year-old Newcastle girl, who had twice before attempted to go to the front dressed in soldier’s uniform, appeared before Mr. Macfarlane at the Central Police Court, Sydney, on Wednesday last, charged with, not being a member of the military forces, having on Anzac Day, worn the uniform of the A.I.F. Police-prcsccutcr Spyer said that the military authorities did not want to be hard on the girl—they merely wanted to revent a recurrence of the offence. Defendant had been fined before for wearing soldier’s uniform —once last December when she boarded the transport at Sydney, and got as far as Melbourne, and later when she was brought before the I Water Court and fined a nominal amount. A member of the Garrison Military Police saw the defendant in Market Street on Tuesday afternoon wearing full uniform. Seeing her with a collecting box, he went up and asked her —thinking she was a man —what company she belonged to, at the same time giving a reminder of the order that had been issued prohibiting soldiers in uniform from taking up collections. The reply he received was “I belong to nothing, and I’m not a soldier —I’m a girl.” He then took her to Victoria Barracks. The Magistrate: Had she been authorised to collect? Yes; the lady from whom she got the box said she thought the girl had a permi tto wear the uniform. Lieut. Thos. Bathurst, assistant-se-cretary of the Returned Soldiers’ Association, tendered evidence on behalf of the defendant. He said she had been authorised to collect. She w r as sent to Newcastle on Monday, and she collected £l5O. She had been allowed to wear the uniform in Newcastle, as had also about 200 other women and girls. The Magistrate: What! Wearing trousers? —Yes. The magistrate considered it a pity for the girl to be at the court at all. “The thing seems to have been suggested to her,-” he said. On the defendant giving an undertaking not to appear in uniform again, Mr. Macfarlane fined her a shilling, the alternative being '“the rising of the court.”