CLEVER IMPOSTURE AT THE EXHIBITION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXII, Issue 241, 12 October 1888, Page 4

CLEVER IMPOSTURE AT THE EXHIBITION.

suspicion. It was only by great exertion that the prisoner was escorted to the police office in the building without sustaining bodily injury, for the story spread so quickly that about 1000 people surged round the police party and their captive, some of whose apparel was torn off by the crowd. The prisoner could only be safely taken to the city station house by strategy, so by direction of Sexton some person spread a report amongst the crowd that the psrsonafcor was being taken away by a side door. There was au immediate rush to the place indicated and Detectives West and Sexton seized the opportunity and took Lawrence out at the front entrance, placed him in a cab, and drove off in haste to the watchhouse. On Monday morning Lawrence was brought before the Court, charged with vagrancy. Detectives Sexton, West, and Lorie explained the circumstances attending his arrest and the seizure of sundry articles at 274, George stieefc, Fitzroy, where he had been living with Mrs Broughton, The prisoner's de fence was that he had only disguised himself for a lark, bnt Detective Greaves, of Sydney, gave some evidence which satisfied the Bench that it was not so, and the prisoner was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. When he heard the decision of the Court he put his hands to his face and called out like a woman, and fell apparently in a faint, but; recovered almost immediately, and was taken to the cells, where he was given male attire to put on.

Melbourne, October 3. There waa a soene of immense excitement at the Exhibition buildings last Saturday night, due to the discovery by Detective Sexton that a remarkable imposture was being undertaken by Gordon Lawrence, aged 21, calling himself an actor, who was promenading in the Avenue of Nations, elaborately attired aa a youpg female. The deception was so well conceived and carried into effect that had it sot been that the officer had interviewed Lawrence as a suspect on criminal matters recently while he was in male attire, and that he was familiar with his facial peculiarities, the imposture would have remained undetected. The case is olassed by the police as one of the moss singular they have encountered during the long course of their experience, and it is only eclipsed by that of the celebrated DeLacey Evans, who for so many years worked amongst miners without her sex being discovered Lawrence, in company with an elderly woman named Broughton, a widow, with whom he has lately been living at Fitzroy, arrived at the Exhibition early in the evening, and the pair promenaded about all over the buildings. The attendance was very large, and among the vast throng there was not one who entertained the faintest idea that Lawrence was other than he assumed to be— a young and giddy maiden who oast side glances at the yonng men. The intervention of the detective officer came in time, When a week ago ho had a long interview with Lawrence, who was suspected of being identical with a fellow charged with committing a diamond robbery in Sydney, he paid particular attention to the fact that Lawrence had a wart on one side of his obin . So when he observed Mrs Broughton and her apparently young female friend walking along the Avenue of Nationt, he recognised Lawrence. He was attired in a dress of navy blue, a jacket with a white stripe, a black straw hat plentifully trimmed with tibbon and flowers, and an auburn wig A lady's cloud was thrown carelessly over one arm, and he carried a showy parasol and fan. His eyebrows were pencilled, his faoe, which is of a purely feminine oast, was amply powdered, and his lips had been made to appear very red. The detective officer approached the impersonator, and requested him to step aside, but Lawrence, whose voice is, like his features, very feminine, assumed an attitude of indignation, and repelled the officer with well-affected goorn, A brother officer, less confident than the discoverer of ihe fraud, thought it was a female person they were addressing, and suggested that they had made a mistake; bat Sexton was not to be so outwitted, and laid a hand on Lawrtnce. The hand was repulsed with a violent effort, but by it the auburn Wig was turned awry, disoloßing the eiosely cropped dark hair of Lawrenoe, and Urns the offlcer. obtained, verification of his