Fake Story.  Police Matron Badly Deceived by a Beneficiary

Mrs. Miller, the woman who came to the city several weeks ago claiming that she was blind and friendless, confessed to Mrs. Wright, the police-matron, Tuesday, that she had misrepresented facts in regard to her people.  She stated when she came to the city that she thought there was a public hospital in the city where she could have her eyes treated.  She was sent to the city hospital where she remained several weeks without medical attention, but she did not seem to need any.  Finally an oculist agreed to treat her eyes and for the past four weeks has been giving her a regular course of treatment.

Tuesday she told Police Matron Wright that the statements made by her when she came here were false and that she had a husband and a small child in Louisville, Kentucky.  She said that her husband, mother-in-law, her child and herself started from Florida in a wagon.  The horse died, and the wagon was sold to pay the mother-in-law’s way to Ohio.  Her husband bound her to secrecy about himself and the child and sent her here to Knoxville to haveh er [sic] eyes treated.  She claimed her eyes were better and then told her affairs to Mrs. Wright, asking that she be sent to Louisville, where she claims her husband and child went after leaving her.

Her story sounded rather “fishy” but she was sent to Louisville yesterday.

Source:  Knoxville Daily Journal and Tribune, April 9, 1896, page 8