The Farmer And Mechanic

Cleveland. Sept. 10—Miss Jeannette Valdez sat in the prisoners' row in the police court to-day charged with vagrancy. She is of slight build, with light eyes and closely cropped hair. She was dressed in a sea-green skirt with a white-dotted blue calico waist. She will be 16 years of age in January next. Her father, Jackson Valdez, is a business man of Wellsville, Ohio. To the Sun correspondent the girl told her story as follows:

Burr Robbins was in Steubenville with his circus on May 23. I wanted to go, but ma didn't want me to. I went to the show. The girl that was to do the trapeze act was drunk, and couldn't do her turn. The manager was mad. I was standing by the dressing room and said to him: 'Let me try it.' He said: 'You try it?' and I said 'Yes, me.' He said: 'You'd break your neck,' and I told him 'I'd take the chances.' You see, my brother that's dead brought some telegraph wire home one day about a year ago, and said he was going to stretch it in the back yard and make a circus lady out of me. I used to give ma the slip and walk the wire and do trapeze business on it.

Well, the manager said I might try it. I put on the other girl's tights and did the trapeze act that night. The manager said I did it well, and engaged me for three months. We travelled over the State, and were in Pennsylvania. When at Sharon, a month after I joined the circus, some fellows came over from Steubenville. They recognized me, and when they went home they told my folks. Finally I went back home, but soon after joined the circus again. I struck Hudson, and a brother of a girl friend of mine lent me a suit of clothes. I came into Cleveland dressed as a boy. I expected some of the cops would get onto my clothes, but they didn't. That afternoon I took my bundle of clothes to the Union Depot, and in the ladies' dressing room I changed back to my girl costume. On Tuesday morning I went down to the park. I saw the sign 'Keep off the Grass,' but I thought that didn't count, and as I wanted to see the water that comes from under the rocks, I just thought I'd get a little nearer by stepping over on the grass. The policeman came along just then and showed his badge, and I said, 'Certainly.' Then the officer brought me to the station.

Which would I rather be, a boy or a girl? Why I'd rather be a boy, by a good deal. Why, when I was with the circus I could go out with the boys and stay out late, and it was all right, but if I had been a girl I wouldn't have been allowed to do it. The Judge sent her to the House of Refuge.