The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1859-11-17

The most remarkable woman OF this centn.
~ was Harry Stokes, the bricksetter, who
committed suicide in the sluice Of the river Ir.
well, at Mode Wheel, England, lately. For about
thirty years this extraordinary person lived in
Manchester and Stafford As a joarneyman and
master bricksetter; had been twice married 10
other women, and kept beer houses and served
customers at the tap rs sjolly landlord. had
worked IT her trade brio kset ter and arec,.
gu many Important buildings In both towns
ana mad obtained the reputation of being the
most skiliful hre-grate.setter and schimney
aoctor in the neighborhood She always
dressed as man, in the clothing peculiar 10
nel ia III s,aae' invariably superintended the men
IN her employment; and could lift weight.
spread the mortar, and set brick with the
best OF them. Her habits were those of a man.
she attended daily ordinary in the town
aIohs with other bricksetters, drank, smoked
and Ioked with the hardest and io.ned in the
evening carousais. Yet, with all this cons tant
ahd close intimacy with the opposite SEX this
s.Iohg-nlnded woman contriyed to keep her
own great secret; and there is every reason to
believe that she has gone down into the grave
at the advanced age of 81, or thereabouts, hay-
ing throughout the whole of her remarkable
NE maintained an unbroken check upon those
passions which crowd the streets of every
large town with the unfortunate of her sex
her great endeayor was on all occasions to
Keep up the manly character she had assumed.
rom child she had been accustom to the
severe work OF one of the most laborious oecu-
patons in which man is engaged, and the skill
she had attained ia the trade reveals an amount
OF perseyerIng energy which made her worthy
oi better fate than that Of the wretched sui
eide.
She was the daughter of hricklayer in a
village in the neighborhood of Doncaster. Be-
fore she could we'll balance her own little
body, she was made ''usefui" in the honse; and
| ere many years had passed over her head she
was brought into acquaintance with some OF
the toughest and toughest work in those hard
wrought days. Little Harriet Stokes lines
| had not been laid In pleasant places She was
SO ground dewn by the iron hand at home
| that when she was about eight years Old she
| put on tattered suit OF boys 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 fathers 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
| peotection of home, and from all the associa-
| tions which should enchain the young mind
TO home. That she was not afraid Of hard
work was apparent when she offered her
vices to a bricksetter in Whitby. Though
somewhat undersized, she appeared a broad
| SET, active, useful lad, and was speedily set to
| work Her first efforts to please were attend
ed with success, and she was soon taken as an
| apprentice.
From this point we must drop the feminine
| appellatiye and speak of "Harry Stokes" as
| boy who had worked his way to the dignity of
| ajourneyman bricksetter. For something like
| twenty years from this point we lose the con-
| Meeting links which join this Yorkshire e1pe-
rience ~ his Manchester life. About twenty
| five years ago he brought prominently
| under the notice of the public by the conse-
quences OF an eccentric excursion which he
| had taken into the domains of matrlmony.-
| Harry Stokes, wanting a companion Ia life,
| executed matrimonial contrstsmps. True to
| his role as man-for he had reached the age
| when the average of breksetters are fathers
as well as journeymen--he cast about ard
| fixed his choice upon plump little WldoW
| who kept a beer-house III Cupid's Alley, OF
| Deansgate, Manchester. He had been aecus-
snyrln lnH IN tt-n h NJ nj hnAr M en-
| short pipe under Betsy's root, and had at least
taken a decided fancy to Betsy herself. He
| was a good-looking young man, was Harry
| Stokes for, although still understood and in
nocent of whiskers, face as smooth as n wo-
| mans, he was stoutly built had a capacious
| depth of chest and pair of hips which gave
| an unusual profit to his tailor Betsy then
| looked with favor on Harry's suit, for he had
the reputation of being good, steady workman,
and was doing pretty we'll as bricksetter.-
| 1t was resolved that the twain should be-
come one flesh; and so 10 the church they
| hied. Harry discharged the duties of bride
| groom at church to perfection; bat when the
| widow got him home there was terrible
row. The night was spent in downright uar-
/ rel and fight; and the lamen table result was
summons taken out by Betsy against her hus-
/ band for assault, for which he was con-
| demned to the New Bailey for one or two
| months. During the hearing of the case, Bet
| sy, with great vehemence, declared that her
| husband was not man, and that she, there
| fore, would not live with him. The case crea-
| ted great am uSement anu gossip at the tlme
and formed the subject OF popular ballads,
| which We're sung and hawked about thestreets
| of Manchester. Harry" Stokes, on issuing
| from the New Bailey, was considerably perse-
| cuted by those little gamins who know so well
| how to torment street celebrities, While he
was also the object OF much curious specu
| ton among his brethren of the trowel. He,
however, maintained discreet silence as to
his sex, threw out hints that the woman
| he had married was mad, and as the most ef
| tective proof that she was maleyolent libel
| Ter he soon afterwards married another Wi
| dow, rejoicing in the name OF Francis Col
| lins, who was some fifteen or twenty years
| his ser ior, and who had grown-up
| son and daughter living with her
! His connection with this woman, with whom
| he lived until he committed suicide, is the
| most mysterious phase of this mysterious his
| tory. She declares with solemn earnestness
| that she did not know, un til informed the other
| day, that the person with whom she had been
| living for the last twenty-five years, sleeping
together night after night in the same bed, was
| a woman, and her own children looked upon
| Stokes as their stepfather She asserts that
stance out of pity, to shield him from the per-
| secution to which he was subjected. 1t may
| be that, although out of sense of shame the
| old woman thus attempts to conceal her know
| ledge of Stokes sex, she did in reality know
| from the first that the person was woman
| and that she was in all probability induced by
| Stokes to consent to the union in order that
| the appea rance of married life might dispel the
| rumors afioat, and enable him to live sin peace
| and quietness." Whether or not that was the
| intention, the acquaintance brought abou t that
| result; for although there were surmises that
| s'Harry' Stokes was a woman, and he was
cons stantly the object of curious glances, he
| capped the open molestation to which he had
been previously subjee ted.-Lats Engiish Pa
perS