SOME FAMOUS MEN-WOMEN.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 November 1917, Page 8

SOME FAMOUS MEN-WOMEN.

FIGHTING IN THE ARMIES. There are at all times a great many more women masquerading as men than is generally suspected. Many of these eases never* come to the light, others are discovered by medical men who are called in to treat the patient during illness. But in most cases it is accident only that reveals the deception. During a great war there are not only many more women who delight in "playing the man," but the exigencies, of military service bring many more cases hefore the notice of the public. Quite a number were revealed and recorded during the war of the Peninsula. And there is still a wide belief in this country that many women have been enrolled in the German Army. From this it is argued that the German reserves are not bo Bmall as is supposed. There are two highly-born women in the Russian Army of to-day—one in the cavalry and the other in the flying service. In our own country there have been several cases of women vainly endeavoring to enlist. Two or three years ago it was discovered that an inmate of the Soldiers' Home at Quincy, Illinoisj, named "Albert Cashier,'-' iwas a woman. "He" or she had served in the ranks of General Grant's army through the Civil War, and had afterwards become a "workman" in civil life. She had passed as a man for sixty years.

LOVE THE MOTIVE. Another case, still more recent, is thnt of Mabel Joyce, who. although only twenty-one years of age, successfully posed as an American cowboy. Love for a man has been proved most frequently the cause of women dressing in masculine garments. The disguise 'has enabled them to accompany their husbands or lovers in circumstances where they would not have been permitted if their sex had been known.

Charlotte Clark, the daughter of Colley Gibber, the famous old-time dramatist, passed most of her time &s a man), apparently because "she liked it." One of the most famous eases of tfhe seventeenth century was that of Mary Frith, better known even at the present time as Moll Cntpurse. She habitually dressed as a man. No doubt her renown rests largely upon Middleton and Row. ley's great play, "The Roaring Girl," of which' she was the heroine. Two other cases may be mentioned before we come to the most daring instance of all. "Jo'lm Coulter," who died in ISB-1, passed ns a man for many years, and worked successively as a farm'hand and as a laborer on the Belfast Harbor Commission. Her work as a dock laborer was continuous for twelve years, and her death was the result of injuries received when she was fifty years of age. When a farm servant, she "mairied" her mistress's daughter, and remained her "husband" for thventy-nine years. For the last six years of married life, however), the wife would not live with her "husband," on account of "his" dissolute habits.

Lucy Ann Stater was one of the very few women who have successfully passed themselves off as clergymen." She brought up as a boy by her father until twelve years old, when she was sent to her grandmother at Dresden. Her grandmother dressed her as a girl, and sent her to a boarding school. After a year of this she declared she was a boy, dressed the part, fell in love with a girl, and ran away. After this episode she returned to her father who again dressed her in male attire and took her with him on his journeys to Britain and other countries. She became a fluent lingulsh, able to speak Hungarian, German, French, English and Italian. She was a good writer, and contributed to two Viennese publications, one Semitic and the other anti-Semitic. Her "marriages'' were the cause of her undoing. Her first "marriage" took place ab Schloss Gyon, where she was wedded to a lady ten years her senior. This lady, Emma E—, was so infatuated that when the "count" wanted a divorce he had to buy his freedom. Her next matrimonial adventure with with Fraulein D ~ with whom she had lived as her "husband." Fraulein D , possibly warned by the case of the divorce of Emma, threatened to shoot "him" if "he" did not remain true. The third time she was "married" by a. faked priest in 1887. Hei father-in-law prosecuted her for having obtained 800 florins and "married hia daughter" under false pretences.