xenith: (M&C Fiddle)
From Chums, 26 April 1893

WOMEN SAILORS.

WHO FOUGHT IN MANY BATTLES.


IN a newspaper of seventy years ago, we are gravely informed that there died at Tamerton, in her sixty-fourth year, a Mistress Mary Pote. A very respectable person was Mistress Mary, popular all the country round, and, what's more, butt-woman of Tamerton Parish Church.

Butt-woman? What does that mean? Well, there is no explanation to be found in any reasonably accessible reference book, but no doubt the position of "parish butt-woman" must have been a highly responsible charge. That must have been so for the reason that the previous career of Mistress Mary was of such a distinguished character that it could not well have been capped by an office wanting in all the dignities. Mistress Mary had been a sailor on board a man-of-war for years, and she had fought under Rodney.

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