LADY OF THE COAST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12401, 24 October 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

LADY OF THE COAST.

STRANGE WOMAN'S WANDERING

ON CORNISH CLIFFS. Amongst the mysteries of "the missing'" none is more pathetic than that of tbe lady who for some time past has been a wanderer along the Cornish coast. At last the poor lady, having been arrested, was brought tip at the Police Court at Penzance and charged, greatly to her indignation, with vagrancy. She presented a pathetically picturesque appearance 'in the dock. She was still wrapped in her coloured rags, and her feet were seen to be bound up in strips of canvas, but her tattered wraps did not conceal the grace of her figure and the presence of a policeman at her side did not prevent her keen dark eyes from flashing angrily at the magistrate as she protested in fluent English against being kept in durance. "Why should I be arrested':" she demanded. "I have done no harm to anybody." Accent and gesticulation were distinctly foreign, but no amount of patient questioning could extract from her any information as to her origin and home. '" How can I tell you my name when 1 don't know it?" she asked: and there, so far as she was concerned, the matter was at an end. The magistrate asked her why she had been wandering about the cliffs. " I am weak." she replied, "but when I am near the sea I get stronger. Why does any- ; one trouble about me!" A policeman told ■, the Court that she had been wandering about the Cornish coast for several weeks, but had hidden herself so well that she had very rarely been seen. Avoiding the roads, she' had crept through the gorse occasionally to seek food at various isolated farmhouses, and then had gone into hiding again. She struggled violently, the constable said, when she was arrested, and seemed to fear that some harm was intended. She bit the hand of one of the constables, when he refused to release her, and three men had to carry her to the police station. She moaned piteously all the. way. When dinner was given to her at the police station she took up the potatoes and meat in her hands. When she was asked why she did not use the spoon which was provided for her—knives and forks being forbidden — she shrugged her shoulders and said, " Why use a spoon when I have lingers"'" Two envelopes found hidden in. bar rags were addressed to " Miss Jeannie Schmolivitz." These bore Philadelphia postmarks, dated 1395 and 1897. An American naturalisation certificate granted to a Russian or Pole, at Philadelphia, was also found upon her. The strange figure in the dock listened to this recital in silence, but when the constable added that his inquiries showed that she had always refused monev when it was offered to her, she roused herself once more. "I am no beggar," she cried. "I do not want money. I only want food and clothes." The magistrate ordered her to be put under the charge of the matron at the workhouse for a fortnight, in order that inquiries mightbo made about her, and that she might be n edieallv examined. This made her angry again. " "Why do that?" she exclaimed. "I am not sick. I have done no harm to anybody. Oh, why am I punished? You are not doing right to me." Still protesting, and looking very distressed, she was removed from the dock and conveyed to the workhouse.- A medical man declares that her obvious weakness and her forgetfulness of name and nationality indicate that the strain of a severe illness has simply brought her into the category of lost identities, and that care and nourishment will bring back her memory. Under the superintendence of the workhouse matron, a great change for the better has been effected in the poor lady's appearance. She is spoken of by those who have seen her m the workhouse as " the woman who never smiles."' "I am called Jeannie," is the only description she can give of herself. "I. do not know any other name." Her accent, with its little foreign touch, is distinctly that of a lady, and her movements are singularly graceful.