A MAN TN WOMAN'S CLOTHES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1898, 30 May 1889, Page 4

A MAN TN WOMAN'S CLOTHES.

The New York Herald contained a paragraph the other morning announcing the death, at Tavistock Workhouse, under extraordinary circumstances, of an old person named Mary Mudgo. It turns out that through 85 years, a long life, the person referred to had been known as Mary Mudge, or Miss Mudge, and it was not till after death, as the body was being prepared for burial, that it was found to be.that of a inau. So may years have slipped by since' Mary’s childhood that it was difficult to obtain information of her early days. As Mary Mudge she was always known, as such she is still referred to by villagers. Not even the oldest inhabitant bad any recollection of Mary’s childhood, and there is no registration to be found. Newton Abbot lies some six or more miles back from Tavistock, and is the village with which Mary Mudge’s life is associated. The earliest recollection of her in the village is a full-grown young woman, when she was then noticeable for her particularly large size. “ That girl ought to have been a boy” seems to have been a common saying at the time. Mary Mndge then lived with her sister, who worked jn the village as a dressmaker, and it is supposed that Mary assisted her from childhood. She "bad been dressed in petticoats, and in the village there was no

suspicion that she was anything but what she seemed to be. The two lived together in one of the row of , cottages which cluster round the church. When the sister died and Mary was left alone, she then retired from the active life of the village and took a small house and a piece of grazing land, a mile and a half distant. Two, or three cows comprised the stock of her small dairy, and Mary, having milked her cows and made her cream and butter, trudged to market and disposed of them. She was of a retiring disposition, and never mixed with neighbours. “ And what sort of a person was she ?” was a question naturally asked of an old villager. “ She seemed a very quiet, retiring sort,” was the answer. “We never suspected anything. I was never so struck in my life as when I heard of it after her death.” Had she ever seen Mary Mudge at church ? She did not remember that she had; in fact, nobody seemed to have known much about M ary. She had lived by herself since her sister’s death, shut up in her lonely house. The two or three cows supplied her bodily needs, and the village doctor does not remember ever giving her medicine; but sickness entered her house four years ago, and found Mary Mudge alone in her lonely dwelling. She was recommended to the union infirmary, where she entered in July, 1885, and has since remained until her death. Such are all the materials obtainable of Mary Mudge’s history. The workhouse doors are closed to enquirers, and the medical gentlemen of that establishment are very reticent aver the matter. Beyond admitting that it was undoubtedly a man, they decline to make any statement. The grave has now closed over M ary Mudge, her body having been taken back to Newton Abbot village on Saturday afternoon and buried in the churchyard.