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Show THE ADVENTURES OF A FEMALE FE-MALE COMPOSITOR IS AMERICA. Under tbe above heading the Chicago correspondent of the London Dress News prints the following "story:" "The heroine of the romantic adventures ad-ventures is a young woman of slight form and rather dimiuutiva stature, of pleasing features, and a manner which denotes good breeding and good education, educa-tion, licr story, which we have lbund amply corroborated by the evidence of persona to whom her history ia wcli known, is as follows: She left her home in .New England gome three years ago, and went out into tho world to earn her living. She first went to Cleveland, Ohio, where she was acquainted ac-quainted with a few families, and made an ellort to live by the needle. It was hard work, and the remuneration was so meagre, that after struggling for some time she was obliged to give it up and seek some other means. It was about thLs time that the movement lor the education of women began to agitate the community. She was deeply impressed with some of the ideas then promulgated, and, putting them into practice, she went into a printing office to work for a year. During that time she succeeded in picking up practical knowledge of the business sufficient to carry her along, and then she struck out for Michigan, and obtained work in a country printing office. While there she became accident !y acquainted with the editor of an agricultural paper in Chicago, in whose office female printers were encaged. At his sutrees- uon she came to Chicago and went to work, getting 'leaded' matter to set, and book work, by which means she was enabled to earn about if teen dollars dol-lars per week. This comparatively easy kind of work did not long continue, con-tinue, so she had to wo tn wnvk on the newspapers ou 'lean tourgeois, ' out of which she found it hard to extract decent de-cent wages. After a while she went on a religious weekly paper, where they set solid matter. This also proved 'lean' work for the young girl, and getting get-ting somewhat discouraged with the business, she left Chicago and went to St. Louis. This was a year ago. She obtained good employment in one of the St. Louis offices, and for a time all went well with her. She found a nice boarding place in the house of a German lady, who rented her a back parlor. She had good clothes, and was making enough to carry her along j smoothly. Shortly after this she fell out of work, and upon mature deliber-; ation she formed a resolution lhat a 1 woman's garment was only an obstacle in her path to preferment, and she accordingly ac-cordingly sold out her female raiment, , aud with the proceeds purchased a suit of male apparel. "This transformation proved a fortunate fortu-nate one. As a man she found immediate imme-diate employment, and, performing a man's work, she received a man's wages. She was a little shy, however, of meeting her old acquaintances, lor fear of detection and its consequences; aud in August last she removed once more to Chicago, where she got employment em-ployment on one of the daily papers. Here sho was kindly treated by her associates, many of whom took quite a liking to the 'little fellow,' who was handy enough, but found some difficulty diffi-culty at first in handling the small type. One day a remark was passed in the composing room by one of the men that the little typo was a woman, nnd curious glances were bestowed upon her from day to day. Alarmed last her sex should be discovered, she proceeded pro-ceeded to take a variety of precautions precau-tions to keep up the delusion so precious to her. She first purchased pur-chased a razor, and shaved her upper lip duly every morning, in the fond hope that she might raise a few hairs. The artifice was a total failure, yet she persevered for a time, and went to the bathing rooms and sat in the barber's chair, and paid her fifteen cents for many a harmless and unnecessary shave. She even smoked cigars, to be like a man, and suffered untold agonies of sickness. She loaned money to her fellow typos, some of whom were not averse to borrow at times. The fear of discovery now caused her to quit printing and resume female attire. During the period she worked in Chicago sho attracted the attention of one of the printers, a kind-hearted kind-hearted aud humane individual, who had suspected the real state of the case, but who, nevertheless, took a friendly interest in her. Acting under his recommendations, re-commendations, she went to board with his mother and sister. For some time past our little heroine has been living with an old schoolmate, who knew nothing of her singular adventure adven-ture until related by herself. ' There is little to add to this narrative, narra-tive, beyond the grateful acknowledgement acknowledge-ment of the young lady that, in all her experiences, she has invariably received re-ceived more sympathy and encouragement encourage-ment from men than her own sex. and that from thoe who clamor loud in behalf of the rights of women she has never received any sympathy or encouragement whatever." |