EXTRAORDINARY CAREER OF A GIRL IN MEN'S CLOTHES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 9, 11 April 1868, Page 3

EXTRAORDINARY CAREER OF A GIRL IN MEN'S CLOTHES.

Mary Ann Walker, who appeared in- a Lon« don Police Court some months- ago* charged. . with robbing the till of a public-house whei* she had managed, in the disguise of a man, to to get employment behind the bar, Ims been discovered in the repetition of her assumed character. From the beginning of September, down to Wednesday week she has been pqrforming the duties of a railway porter at the Paddington Terminus, under the name of Charles Arnold, On that day she was taken ill, and her sex was discovered at the house where she wa9 lodging. On Turaday she decamped taking with her several suits of male clothes and a pass ticket for the Great Weetern Hue. Inquiries have been made, and from the official report to the general niana- . ger of the railway it would seem that the story of this singular woman is not less strange than adventures of the same kind that have become historical. After her conviction of the robbery, when passing as a barman, she first serred a term of imprisonment with hard labour at the House of Correction, and was then sent to the Elizabeth Fry Refuge, where her conduct was so bad that she was ejected as incorrigible. She went to the keeper of a wardrobe shop, wbo bad known her family and hersolf, as well as her career, and besought shelter. The Wo " man keeping this shop supplied her eccentric guest with feminine clothing, which was so nttlo to Mary Walker's taste that by long persuasion, she inducad her hostess to furnish her with her more accustomed garb of a man. Thus attired, she made application for employ ment on the platform of the Great Western Railway at paddington, and, having succeeded in getting engaged, was soon noted as being the first to begin work and the last to leave it. Her earlier adventures, if truly stated, are of the most extraordinary kind. Sho is th» daughter of a publican in Westminster, "who sent her ti» a boarding school before he allowed her to assist In his" business. "Her passion for masquerading as a boy grow- upon her till she absconded in man's clothes, and wan next heard of as having been defected in her assumption of the part of messenger at Jesus College, Cambridge . Then she became bookin» clerk at the Birmingham 6 atiun of the North-Western Bailway, "and was discharged) for getting drunk. She next found employ* ment on board one of the Cunard line of stea- . mere, and there acquired the habit of smoking tobacco. She was then an engine-cleaner at the King's Cross terminus of the Grert NorthI crra RuilwnT j and thenoo alie pvooeecieel to fill the plaoe of a barman at the tawrn where the committed the theft. Both her parents are dead, but she has two sisters living, each of whom is earning a respectable livelihood— th« one as a housekeeper, an I the orlwr a 8 governess, An aunt has made fivquent attempt* toreolaim her, but without the least avail. An inspector of the Great Western Railway Company's police is on her track, and, wheuappre« hended, Bhe will b» charged'w»h. feferajK