AN IRISH "MIRACLE."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 153, 29 June 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

AN IRISH "MIRACLE."

SHAM DEAF AND DUMB GIRL'S MAIt-

VELLOUS IMPOSTURE,

The world of science was recently surpriied by the story from Ireland of a wonderful miracle. A young girl of 18, deaf an* dumb from birth, had, it was said, suddenly received the faculties of hearing and speech.

Unfortunately, the miracle never happen* cd. The whole thing was an impostnr*.

The young girl in question lived at H«P» bcur Row, Queenstown, and gave her nam« as Mary Kate Hodges.

The "news" of her miraculous tetjnlSltloil of the power of speech and Bearing soon got abroad, and representatives of vwrton* newspapers naturally went to Bee htr.

Her story sounded well,

"1 am the daughter of a well-known tod much-respected clergyman at Ballycotton," she said, demurely.

"I had been deaf and dumb all my l\t€, and have been kept in a deaf and dumb Institute in Dubltn. I left there lost November, became a Roman Catholic, and ciun* here to Queenstown in January."

She told her interviewers that she begun to speak in jerks at first. She added thai she attributed her release from the malady" to the fact that she hnd become a Romaa Catholic. So her story was published, and & lady living in Colcuester, seeing the account, and having a deaf and dumb daughter, wrota to her. The clever yonng woman's reply is a remarkable document. "I was born deaf and dumb," she wrotS in the course of her letter, "and born a Protestant. But I became a Roman Cathotte last November. Since then I have got a lot of masses offered up for me and got Serefal rounds performed. It cost me a great deal of money. I shall do everything for yoni? daughter that has >7ecn done for myself if you send the money. Otherwise I can do nothing." Then came the unmasking. A "Daily Mail" correspondent went thoroughly intoi the matter, and found that the Hodges tamily, to whom the girl had referred, knew nothing of her. One of her statements was that she had received £10 from Dr. Hodges. That gentleman denied It. The Catholic Institution for the Deaf and Domb at Dublin was applied to, and it was fonnd that no such girl had been to that place. The reputed Miss Hodges then cleared out of Queenstown and went to live In Cork, and the other day she was seen On the' qnay at Queenstown with a man named Burke, one of her fellow lodgers at Queenstowa, the pair embarking per the Lucanla for News York as man and wife.