The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-25 00:00:00

Masons

Carpenters .. .. .. 1,009 175 0 0
Bricklayers .. .. .. 580 101 10 0
Stone polishers .. .. 2 0 5 0
Painters .. .. 180 31 10 0
Plasterers .. _ .. 630 110 5 0
Stone sawyers 50 7 10 0
Woolwich men .. .. 126 20 4 0
Labourers —Lodge 1 .. 340 42 10 0
ft ft 2 .. 132 16 10 0
ft If 3 .. 154 19 5 0
ff ft 4 .. 250 31 5 0
ft
6 .. 82 10 6 0
ff
t f ~ 6 .. 418 52 5 0
ft
ff 7 .. 149 18 12 6
~ 8 .. 31 45 0
~
If „ 9 .. 309 38 12 6
11 ~ 10 .. 190 23 15 0
~ „ 11 (paid with Woolwich men)
I, ~ 12 .. 20 210 0
1, ~ 13 .. 7 017 6
Non-society men .. .. 656 82 0 0
TrollJpe's men .. .. 110 50 0 0

5,769 £899 16 6

THE WOMAN WHO PASSED FOR A

M A N.

(From the Salford TI eekly News.)
The most remarkable woman of this century was
" Harry' Stokes, the bricksetter, who committed
suicide in the sluice of the river Irwell, at Mode
Itrheel, last night week. For about 30 years this
extraordinary person had lived in Manchester and
Salford as a journeyman and master bricksetter ;
had been twice married to other women; had kept
beerhouses and served customers at the tap as a

"jolly landlord ;" had worked at her trade as
bricksetter, and erected many important buildings
in both towns; and had obtained the reputation of
being the most skilful fire-;rate setter and "chim-
ney doctor" in the neighbourhood. She always
dressed as a man, in the clothing peculiar to her
trade ; invariably superintended the men in her
employment; and could lift a weight, spread the
mortar, and set a brick with the best of them. Her
habits were those of a man. She attende'd a daily
ordinary in the town along with other lnieksetters,
drank, smoked, and joked with the hardest, and
joined in the evening carousals. Yet, with all this
constant and close intimacy with the opposite sex,
this strong-minded woman contrived to keep her
own great secret ; and there is every reason to be-
lieve that she has gone down into the valley of
death at the advanced age of 60, or thereabouts,

having throughout the whole of -her remarkable
life maintained an unbroken check upon those pas-
sions which crowd the streets of every large town
with the unfortunate of her own sex. Her great
endeavour was on all occasions to keep up the
manly character she had assumed. From a child
she had been accustomed to the severe work of one
of the most laborious occupations in which man is
engaged, and the skill she had attained in the trade
reveals an amount of persevering energy which
made her worthy of a better fate than a wretched
suicide.
She was the daughter of a bricklayer, in a vil-
lage in the neighbourhood of Doncaster. Before she
could well balance her own little body, she was
made "useful" in the house; and, ere many years had
passed over her head, she was brought into ac-
quaintance with some of the roughest and toughest
work in those hard wrought days. Little Harriet
Stokes's lines had not been laid in pleasant places.
She was so ground down by.the iron hand at home,
that, when she was about eight years old, she put
on a tattered suit of boy's clothing, and walked
forth into the " wide, wide world." Arrived at the
village of Whitby, she looked about for work. She
had not run away from her father's house because
she did not like work, and preferred to eat the bread
of idleness. The hard treatment of parents, ignorant
of their responsibility, had driven her from the
protection of home, and from all the associations
which should enchain the young mind to home.
That she was not afraid of hard work was appa-
rent, when she offered her services to a bricksetter
awpepreea
ar et
tde
na d
ebdr owe
th sets, u
ca
cc
et is vs e,
a,
nuas es
hf uel lad,wa s
soaonndtawkeans
in- Whitby. Though somewhat undersized, she
speedily set to work. Her first efforts to please

as an apprentice. From this point we must drop
the feminine appellative, and speak of " Harry
Stokes" as a boy who has worked his way to the
dignity of journeyman bricksetter. For something
like 20 years from this point wa lose the connect-
ing links which join this Yorkshire experience to
his Manchester life. ' About 25 years ago, however,
he was brought prominently under the notice cf the
public, by the consequences of an eccentric excur-
sion which had taken into the domains of matri-
mony. Harry Stokes wanting a companion in life,
executed a matrimonial contretemps. True to his
role as a man—for he had now reached the age
when the averag e of bricksetters are fathers as well
as journeymen—ile cast about and fixed his choice
upon a plump lithe widow who kept a beer-houb9