A MYSTERIOUS WOMAN

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6412, 8 January 1908, Page 6

A MYSTERIOUS WOMAN

BATHER OR BOOT? At about 4 o’clock one morning the Parramatta Police were told a story by a lamplighter named Osborne, who is employed by the gas company. Doing his rounds turning out the street lights (says the "Sydney Morning Herald”) he had to cross the dam at the foot of Marsden street. This dam divides the fresh from the salt water. Osborne's story to the police was that as he was crossing the dam his attention was Urst attracted by a woman's hat, which lay on the causeway. A hatpin was standing up, sticking through it. Lying beside the hat was a box of matches. Osborne struck a match, and was horrified at seeing lying in the water the body of a woman. He got a stick and touched the body, which then disappeared. Ho then lost no time in running to the police station, which is about one hundred yards distant. Two policemen ran with aU haste to the scene, taking with them the ambulance. When they got there the hat had disappeared. The volicemen at once stripped and wont into the water, making search for the body. The water was shallow, not more than throe or four feet deep. Their search was fruitless. Grappling irons were then procured, and some hours were spent in searching but the search revealed coming. At a later hour tho sergeant interviewed Osbornn, 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 vac causeway- After being in tho 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 "body" touched it with his lighting rod, when it moved away by crouching still lower. The man then ran oh, and the maiden, seizing her opportunity, jumped out of the water, snatched* up her hat, and ran off home.