WOMAN IN MALE ATTIRE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13874, 11 April 1907, Page 7

WOMAN IN MALE ATTIRE

PECULIAR CASE AT AUCKLAND. •• (i?Ei: United Pitxss Association.) AUCKLAND, April 10. On the charge sheet of tho Police Court this morning there appeared Hie name of Bertha Victor, alias lievi, charged with ( drunkenness. Defendant, a tall Jewess, was dressed in a grey coat, and skirt, with a masculine black felt bat sot on her closecroppeil black hair. (Sub-inspector Gordon made the luminal announcement that the woman, who had come to Auckland from Sydney, had been found masquerading in male attire. She was found drunk, and the people who discovered her, thinking; that slio was insensible, endeavoured by means o[ j-.rl iiiein.l respiration to restore animation. . Theneffort.? were unsuccessful. A doctor was summoned, and ho pronounced excessive indulgence in drink to bo the cause of the trouble, and also madft tho startling discovery that tho supposed man was a woman. The police took her to the station, where tho g?rb o[ her eex was offered her, but for sonie time she persisted in retaining the forbidden garments. The SubinspectOf also mentioned that Victor had been masquerading similarly in Sydney before her arrival in , New Zealand. Mr -Kettle: Why did you do it? Defendant said she came here of her own free will, and, ,1 having failed to get work when clothed in the gnrb of her sex, she thought male attire would bo more useful, "because," she added, "I am more able )o do men's work." She said she had brothers in Chmtclmrch, and had kept a boarding-house in Sydney. Mr Keltic said that he would remand the woman until 2 o'clock in okl<m that she might communicate with tho Rabbi. After the. adjournment, the woman was brought before the court again, and explained that she had soon the Rabbi, who couW <lo nothing for Tier. She aske<l. for another chance, and promised that if Iliis was given s'.ie would leave town. His Worship said they did not want her to do this, but she must give up wearing male attire. ' Defendant promised to do this, and was accordingly convicted and ordered to come up when called upon. '