WOMEN WHO HAVE LIVED AS MEN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CI, Issue 11782, 6 January 1899, Page 3

WOMEN WHO HAVE LIVED AS MEN.

About twenty years ago a handsome young civilian in Hungary presented himself to the military authorities’as a candidate for the army. He objected to the usual military examination, and was allowed to enter ; on a certificate of health from his own doctor. He gave his natne as Felix Francoine. His conduct in. the ranks was most exemplary, and lie soon received promotion. As captain of a noted jcorps, he became very popular, and was about to be despatched on an important expedition, when his sudden death from heart disease caused considerable regret among his many admirers. The medical inquiry which followed revealed that the smart officer was a woman. Subsequent information went to show that the woman’s strange freak was the result of disappointment in love. In the province of Brittany, in France, there recently died an old fisherman, who had followed that craft for more than fifty years without once exciting suspicion as to his actual sex. He owned a dozen boats, the hire of which, together with the profits of his own business, had enabled him to save a snug little fortune in the Bank of Prance. He was well esteemed by all who knew him, and was a great favourite with the cure of the parish. Perhaps the most surprising part of his history was the fact that he was married twice, and was twice a widower. His death alone exposed his deception, proving that he Was a woman, who, for some strange reason, had lived as a male for nearly the whole of her life.

During the Franco-German War no less than a dozen of the dead found upon the field after a certain battle were found to be women of Paris, who had assumed the role of soldiers for the nonce, either for personal or political motives.

The -master of a worklr-u.se in the south of England, some years since, held that post for eighteen performed the multitudinous duties with every satisfaction to the guardians and to the inmates. A(t the end of that period a startling drama was enacted one day, for a recently-arrived inmate of the house, on being introduced to the master, tore off bis false beard and mousteacher, and addressed him as his “ long-lost wife.” The two bad parted in America, whence the wife had returned to England, and, for some inscrutable 1 reason, had taken the character and position above described. ’ The report issued by the Paris police last year contained the information, that put of the seven hundred supposed males found in the Seine during that period and conveyed

to the morgue, five were women in male apparel, though their motives for assuming this disguise never transpired.