A MYSTERIOUS WOMAN.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 8, 10 January 1908, Page 3

A MYSTERIOUS WOMAN.

BATHER OR BODY?

! At about 4 o'clock one morning the ■ Parramatta Police were told a story i by a lamplighter named Osborne, who !is employed by the gas company, j Doing his rounds turning out the I street lights (says the Sydney Morn- < ing Herald) he had to cross the dam iat the foot of Marsden Street. The I dam divides the fresh from the salt i water. Osborne's story to the police ! was- that as he was crossing the dam I his attention was first attracted by a j woman's hat, which lay on the cause- ! way. A hatpin was standing up, ;': sticking through it. Lying beside the 1 hat was a box of matches. Osborne ; struck a match, and was horrified at i seeing lying in the water the body of I a woman.: got a stick aiid touched j the body, which then disappeared. j He then lost no tinae in running to ! the police station, which is about one ; hundreds yards distant. -Two police- • men ran with all haste to the scene, ; taking with them the ambulance. ; When they got there the hat had 3isi appeared. The policemen at once i stripped and went into the water^ ! making search for the body. The i water was shallow, not more than I three or four feet deep. Their search j was fruitless. Grappling irons were j then procured, and some hours were i spent in searching, but the search ■ revealed nothing. At a later hour I the sergeant interviewed Osborne, who still stuck to his story. During the afternoon the current story in Parramatta was that in the early morning, between 4 and 5 o'clock, a young woman took herself down to the river for a bathe. She wore a bathing costume, also a hat. When she went into the water she placed her hat on the causeway. After being in the water a few minutes she heard footsteps approaching, and sought to hide herself by crouching low down in the water. The lamplighter came along, and seeing the <cbody" touched it with his lighting rod, "when it moved away by crouching still. lower. The man then ran off, and the maiden, seizing her opportunity, jumped out of the water, snatched up her hat, and ran off home.