The “Tingwick girl”, Josephine Marie Bedard, Was an Obvious Fraud
There are some cases of “fasting girls” that were obvious frauds intended on financial gain. A young woman known as “The Tingwick Girl”, Josephine Marie Bedard, claimed that she had not eaten for seven years. Two Boston venues, The Nickelodeon and Stone and Shaw’s museum, wanted to display Josephine as an attraction for paying customers.
During her observation of Josephine Marie Bedard in 1889, Dr. Mary Walker was watching to make sure that she did not eat. She told the newspaper, “At the hotel I searched her clothing and found in one of her pockets a doughnut with a bite taken out of it…. On Fast day I had lunch served to me… I left a platter with three pieces of fried potato on it. I went there and one of the pieces was gone… after I accused her of it she broke down and cried.”
