WOMAN'S PERFECT DISGUISE.

Taihape Daily Times, 28 April 1919, Page 2

WOMAN'S PERFECT DISGUISE.

i UNRECOGNISED BY HUSBAND. ( CHILD PERCEIVES DECKPTION. SYDNEY. April 16. j A clivoice ev.se with extraordinary features is reported from Hobart. I Thomas Barker, a sawmiller, in Deccjnber, 1905, married a Miss Rough, and between then :iud 1917 they lived at various places in Tasmania Their fourth child was hem at a place called Lady's Bay. where they had lived for : several years. They had a number of friends there, and Barker's "mate" was John Thomas Martyn. Mrs Barker expressed a wish to go to another place—Waratah—and it was arranged that she and her children proceed thither, and that Barker would follow live weeks later. When, in July. 19.17 h? reached War-tfah, he found only n rr.t-o from her saying that she had gone away "for. good." She said he need not try to find her. for she would ":■' come back.

The husband placed two _of the deI sorted children with relatives, and two in a Salvation Army heme In June. 19.1 S, lie was in Hobart. 'and unsuccessfully sought information of his missing wife. He then went down to the fishing boat Foam to look tip Tern Martyn his old friend. There was a woman with Martyn. whom the latter intveduced as his wife. He had tea with them, and he told them about his children in the heme. Mrs. Martyn said she would like to see them, so he met Mr. and Mrs Martyn later in the town, and they boarded a tram car and set off for the home. On the way Mrs. Martyn had an argument f with a tram conductor, and in the '■ excitement her voice assumed what to Barker was a curiously familiar ring, but he could not identify it. The children liked Mrs. Martyn. "Oh, daddy.' 1 cried one of the youngsters, his arms round the woman's neck, "isn't she like mummy?" That started a train of thought in Barker's mind. But his wife had been very dark, and Mrs. .Martyn had fair hair, and eyebrows. Still, when they took him to their lodgings, he watched the

wonuiTi carefully, and his suspicions

I grow. Barker called two or three times at the lodgings and finally was able to get a look at Mrs. Martyn's coal, and easily recognised it as one Ms wife took away. That afternoon, in the .presence of her landlord and landlady. Barker began to question the won>,an, and she became confused. "You are my wife," he accused her. "I am not," she said, in her assumed voice. Don't be ridiculous. I have been married to Martyn for ten, years." But the evidence was too strong, and she surrendered, and admitted, in her natural voice, that she hadj be.euf merely living with Martyn. She had dyed her hair and eyebrows and removed two moles from her cheek. The judge granted a decree nisi.