News of the Day
    

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1860s newsprint

Standard [Clarksville, TX], February 4, 1860

An extraordinary case of a girl concealing her sex for many years has been brought to light at Pettiers, France. Augustine, alias Augustus Baudouin, young person of 17, was known in the town and neighborhood as an active lad, and had been in place in respectable houses as “odd boy.” This individual was lately tried for robbery, and while in prison the authorities conceived some suspicions, and ascertained her to be a female. On being asked what reason she had for wearing men’s clothes, she said she had observed that men got their living easier than women; but she refused to give any information as to her birth and parentage. She was removed to the female wards, but her repugnance to appear in woman’s attire among her fellow prisoners was so great, that she committed suicide by hanging herself to an iron bar with a pocket handkerchief.

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