ASTONISHING CAREER OF A WOMAN WITH A PAST

Evening Star, Issue 15516, 11 June 1914, Page 4

ASTONISHING CAREER OF A WOMAN WITH A PAST

She is devoid of any sense of right ans§ wrong,” said Sir Thomas Clouston, the lunacy expert, at Rochester, when an at-tractive-looking woman, who posed as a hospital nurse and a master of arts, and had many aliases, including Leslie Plant, Lily Esgate, Mary Engate, and Gloria Leslie, was sentenced for theft from a local hotel. She was said to hare had a most remarkable criminal career. Born in County Dublin in 1885, the daughter of a naval artificer, she married at the age of 17 a journeyman carpenter. Five years later they separated, the husband retaining the custody of the two children. In 1907 accused was sentenced to three months at York for fraud, and afterwards sent to a rescue home in Edinburgh. She thou adjourned to South Qucensferry, where she was imprisoned for theft. She was next heard of at Edinburgh, where she went to live in a leading hotel, posing as a “ward in Chancery." She made the acquaintance of a certain Edinburgh merchant, and in March, 1908, was married to him in Glasgow. The pair soon parted, and prisoner then turned her attention to laundry,, wort, and afterwards to nursing. The Edinburgh merchant had his marriage annulled, and prisoner’s next victim was a student at Edinburgh University. How long these two lived together is not known, but prisoner was next heard of at Reigatc, Surrey, where she was employed by a lady as “ Nurse Leslie.” After her arrival two mysterious fires occurred. In October, li? 10, she secured an appointment under a doctor in the same town, and there was another fire. In 1911, after being arrested in London, she was sentenced to sir months at Edinburgh for bigamy. Imprisonment for fraud at Glasgow,.followed, and in 1912 she was again sentenced for bigamy, this time with a gentleman from Rochdale. She refused any account of herself when arrested on the charge for which she was now sentenced to 12 months’ hard labor.