2nd s. VIII. Oct. 22. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



333 



Note on Bacon (2°^ S. vi. 407.), he might have 

 spared a very unnecessary repetition. 



BEARDED WOMEN. 



(2'"» S. viii. 247.) 



Some years ajro, when I was staying at one of the 

 hotels near the Falls of Niagara, on the Canadian 

 side, I one day saw a young woman of the hotel 

 go to a neighbouring pump to fetch water. On 

 returning, she passed near me, when I observed 

 that she had a strong beard on her face, but it 

 was cut close with scissors. The circumstance 

 struck me, and I made some remark about it to 

 a gentleman with whom I had been in conver- 

 sation, who had been some time staying at the 

 hotel, and knew the girl well. He said I was 

 quite right about her beard ; that she had a very 

 fierce one, but that she cut it off with scissors, 

 because people quizzed her about it. That gen- 

 tleman either told me at the time, or I have been 

 told somewhere else, that such women would not 

 bear children. On this latter point it should 

 seem that I must have been misinformed ; for 

 both Evelyn and your correspondent John Pavin 

 PHiLLiPS.distinctly state the contrary. 



P. Hutchinson. 



These Itisus naturee have by no means been un- 

 common throughout all ages; nevertheless they 

 were always looked upon with curiosity, and in- 

 stances thought worthy of being recorded. I 

 annex a few by way of example : — 



Hippocrates, De Morbis vulvar. 1. vi. sec. 7., 

 thus writes : — 



" Abderis Phaetusa, Pythei conjux, antea per juventam 

 foecunda erat, viro autem ejus diu exulante menses de- 

 fecerunt, ex quo postea dolores et rubores ad articulos 

 exorti sunt. Qusb ubi contigemnt turn corpus virile et 

 in universum hirsutum est redditum, barbaque est enata 

 et vox aspera reddita." 



Margaret, formerly Governess of the Low Coun- 

 tries, whose great beard was a singular ornament 

 to her robust body. 



In the museum at Stutgard there is a picture 

 of a woman named Barteld Gratje, with a large 

 beard as she appeared in her twenty-fifth year, 

 anno 1587, and a painting also of her as she ap- 

 peared in her old age. 



In 1726, at the carnival at Venice, there ap- 

 peared a female bearded rope-dancer. 



A bearded Amazon served as a grenadier in all 

 the campaigns of Charles XII. of Sweden, dis- 

 playing all the courage of the other sex until she 

 was taken prisoner at the battle of Pultowa. In 

 1724 she was brought from Siberia to St. Peters- 

 burg, and introduced to the Czarina. Her beard 

 was an ell and a half long. 



Elizabeth Knepchtin, a Swiss countrywoman, 



also bore a venerable beard. By direction of 

 Duke Ernest Lewis of Saxe Meinungen her por- 

 trait was taken, of which a copy is to be seen in 

 the Breslau collection, B. 29. p. 73. 



In the year 1775 the minister of a parish in the 

 Orkney Islands, describing the manners of the in- 

 habitants, tells that the custom there is never to 

 baptize a female child before a male, otherwise 

 they have a superstition that, upon arriving at the 

 years of discretion, slie would certainly have a 

 strong beard, and the boy would have none. 



Ithtjbiel. 



I know the following instance of a bearded 

 woman which I saw in company with another 

 officer, when quartered at Lisbon, Portugal, in 

 1827. My account is meagre, for it is long ago, 

 and the Notes I took are not forthcoming among 

 my papers ; but fortunately I possess a good me- 

 mory. 



The hairy girl was apparently seventeen or 

 eighteen, perhaps less. We saw and conversed 

 with her, so close that both by sight and touch 

 we could see there was no deception. In com- 

 pany with her was a person who stated herself to 

 be her mother. 



She (the girl) was perfectly feminine, her fea- 

 tures agreeable, and her manners lady-like. She 

 had a small moustache and whiskers, and the hair 

 grew quite low on the forehead, almost as low as 

 the eyebrows. It was also very low on her neck 

 and shoulders ; in fact as far as we could see for 

 her dress. The hair was not coarse, but soft and 

 silky, and of a brown colour. 



I perfectly recollect that her fingers were co- 

 vered all the way down, on the outside, with 

 thickish short hair, but none between them or 

 on the palm of the hand. 



She was not tall for her age, and was, I think, a 

 native of Portugal. We suggested to her mother 

 to exhibit her in England ; and possibly this may 

 be the person mentioned as having been here fif- 

 teen or sixteen years ago. Port Fire. 



In Kirby's Wonderfid and Eccentric Museum, 

 vol. vi., an account is given, accompanied by a 

 portrait, of a young Frenchwoman, calling herself 

 Madlle. Lefort, who, although feminine in form, 

 presented the masculine phenomena of beard, 

 whiskers, &c. This girl was exhibited in 1818-19. 

 I remember another case of a similar kind in a 

 young woman, a- Piedmontese, who had a beard 

 of the length of eight or ten inches, but not very 

 thick. I do not now remember her name, but 

 she had a room for the reception of company in 

 St. James's Street. Her appearance in London 

 must have been at least twenty -five years ago. 

 She was unmarried at that time. Whether the 

 instance mentioned by Mb. Phillips were a 



