The mysteries of sex : women who posed as men and men who impersonated women / by C.J.S. Thompson.
- Charles Thompson
- Date:
- 1938
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The mysteries of sex : women who posed as men and men who impersonated women / by C.J.S. Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Her next move was to take rooms at the house of a watchmaker at Charing Cross. Having ingratiated herself with the landlord and his wife, she invited them one night to go and see a play at the Duke’s Theatre and provided them with tickets. They went off delighted and in their absence she stripped the shop of watches and jewellery to the value of six hundred pounds and disappeared. Retribution, however, came at last and put an end to her career of crime in a curious manner. A Mr. Freeman, a brewer, had been robbed of two hundred pounds, and suspicion fell on Mary. The police went to search her house one night and entered a bedroom where they found Mary in her nightgown. On the table they caught sight of two letters laying open and noticed they were signed 4 Mary Carleton.’ They recognized the name and took her off to Newgate on suspicion. When she was questioned and asked if she went by the name of Mary Carleton, she replied 4 Yes.’ On inquiries it was found she had escaped from custody in Jamaica and still had time to serve. - : / She was indicted and charged with stealing a piece of gold in Chancery Lane and was found guilty and sentenced to death. She pleaded that she was with child, but this was disproved by a jury of matrons who examined her. A date was fixed for her execution at Tyburn. Meanwhile she was visited in prison by many people who were anxious to see a woman, who, though only thirty-eight, had had such an extra¬ ordinary career and who in her frauds had shown remarkable cunning and ingenuity. i] On the day she went to the gallows, she pinned a portrait of her husband (which husband is not recorded) on her sleeve and, escorted by a friend named Mr. Crouch, took her place in the cart. On the way through St. Giles they stopped at a tavern and Mary](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30320070_0254.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
