STRANGE PREDICAMENT OF A PRETTY LA UNDRESS.

Bush Advocate, Volume I, Issue 3, 12 May 1888, Page 3

STRANGE PREDICAMENT OF A PRETTY LA UNDRESS.

. « . The inhabitants of the famous town of Sevres, outside Paris, have . (#ie Paris correspondent of* the DaUy Telegraph says) been thrown into fits of sensation owing to the disgraceful conduct of the local authorities, who persist in returning a young laundress, named Mdlle .Wilmin,; as an able-bodied lad fit for service in the army. The blanchisseuse is one of the belles of S&vres, and oven breaks the hearts of swains who dwell in the adjacent township of Meudon, of Rabelaisian memory. It appears that Mdlle Wilmin's progenitor was an unlettered person, who was also deaf. It is likewise to be presumed that the. parish registrar of births, deaths, and marriages, was hard of . hearing, for when M. "Wilmin pere announced that he had christened his daughter " Ijlenriette " the Registrar; wrote," Henri," and on passing the papers to M. Wilmin for "his mark" that worthy did not notice the mistake. Hence the Belle Blanchisseuse of Sevres has all this time been eligible for the army. Strange to say, red tape is so insatiable and exacting that the number of the young woman was drawn in the conscription by the local mayor,: aiid she was told off in due order to- the secpnd contingent of recruits. She will now very probably have to present herself : . before:, mi assembly of generals, prefects, mayors, and doctors at Versailles, so as to give them due and incontestable proof that she belongs not to the sterner but tp the softer sex. One of the most amusing circumstances in the case is the anxiety shown by the local authorities to make their returns .tally as much as possible with fact. '•• "Henri, Wilmin," was of course a; contradiction; in ..terms,:. so the municipal scribes, withjthat zeal for precision characteristic of the plodding official mind, ; altered the word blanchisseuse to blanchisseur. . . Thus the demoiselle ; r p had no ioqphole to escape. It is to be hoped that she may be spared .for ,one of, her swains, and not 'obliged to become a soldier in spite ,of herself.. The Council of Revision, or "Recruiting Board," in whose presence all conscripts have : to. appear, will of course set matters right. But they may effect a judicious compromise by calling upon the Belle Blanchiseuse to serve* as a vivandi^re. In any case life has been made very unpleasant for the "Lovely Laundress," and she is pestered by the banter and balivemes of all her friends, neighbors, and : associates.