A SENSATIONAL DISCOVERY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 21, 26 January 1898, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL DISCOVERY.

■ A most sensational discovery was made at Coolah, New South Wales, on the 13th inst. A woman attired as^a man came to town and put up at Kerney s Hotel, where she took suddenly ill and expired On Monday. Her sex was not discovered until the hotly was being prepared for interment. For the past two years the deceased had been in the employ men t of Mr M'Master, of Burma Station, as cook for the men, and went by the name of Frederick Wilson. Women who have successfully masqueraded as men, and continued to sustain their assumed characters to the end of the chapter, have been common enough in most countries. Australia has had an average share of these human problems. The most notable of all was perhaps that of De Lacy Evans, who wound his or her career, so far at least as the public were aware, by forming one of the attractions of a show in Sydney some seventeen or eighteen years ago. De Lacy Evans had, as many persons will remember to have heard or read, passed for a man during a long course of years in Victoria, had been a manager of a mine, and, strangest circumstance of all, got married. The creature, when her true sex was discovered on her admission to a hospital, had been for some time a widower. More recently another case of the kind was reported from Victoria. It was that of a German, who like De Lacy Evans, has been known for years as a practical miner, but u'ho was ultimately found to be a woman. The number of women who, when donning the garments of the sterner sex, have taken to very stern work is, as is well known, a pretty large one. There are any amount of really authentic stories of female soldiers and female sailors who have displayed the most exemplary courage. A strange instance of the sort came to lipht some time in the 'forties on the death of^an army surgeon who had served through- "Wellvtigton's campaigns in Spain and the South of France. His coolness and pluck in the most trying situations had won him the respect of all his comrades. He had further proved his mettle by engaging in some desperate duels, in all of which be had come off unscathed. After death this redoubtable doctor was revealed as a woman. Her story will naturally appear all the more mysterious when the fact is borne in mind that he flourished in the days when the woman doctor was not yet dreamt of.