WOMAN AS SOLDIER.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue 9417, 16 August 1907, Page 3

WOMAN AS SOLDIER.

An interesting .story) -of, a woman soldier

is told (says the St. Petersburg capress pondent of the Daily Telegraph) by the - l usually dull • official military journal Russky Invalid. A .girl naniied Zenia Kritskaya, moved by intense patriotism , disguised herself as a man, and,_ leaving her 'native province of Podolia, journeyed to the Far East under an assumed 1 name to serve as a volunteer against tSfoe Japanese. When her (request to be conveyed, togetiher with the troops, from Chelabinsk to Haarbin, -was refused, she contrived, innder enormous difficulties, to make the journey, and' finally was enrolled in the mounted, troops. Neither tie officers nor privates suspected the sex of the inteepid warrior during her two and a half months' service. Taking an active part in an engagememt with the ChTOirchußes, she carried two wounded comrades out of the range of fire, dressed their woundß, and defended them unifcil the emd of the skirmish, When she herself was wounded. The commander of the Ist Manchurkai Army then conferred upon hear the insignia of the Military Order of the Fourth Degree. The truth having leaked out, the romantic story was narrated to the Emperor, .and the faot emphasised that the Miliiajy Order cannot be wown by a woman, but the Emperor, taking into conadeiration Mdlle. Kritskaya's bravery and patriotism, has commanded her to retain the otrder.

r Requests foT her autograph have been so .numerous that Madame Melba has decided to regulate the demand in *be interests of charity. In future she will only have her , autograph forwarded where the application is .accompanied by half-a-crown- The paroceeds -will be handed over to a charity.