he escaped detection so long, she replied that
she always lived quietly in her own house with her wife and did
her duty by her employers so that no one meddled with her.

In Chicago in 1906 much attention was attracted to the case of
"Nicholai de Raylan," confidential secretary to the Russian
Consul, who at death (of tuberculosis) at the age of 33 was found
to be a woman. She was born in Russia and was in many respects
very feminine, small and slight in build, but was regarded as a
man, and even as very "manly," by both men and women who knew her
intimately. She was always very neat in dress, fastidious in
regard to shirts and ties, and wore a long-waisted coat to
disguise the lines of her figure. She was married twice in
America, being divorced by the first wife, after a union lasting
ten years, on the ground of cruelty and misconduct with chorus
girls. The second wife, a chorus girl who had been previously
married and had a child, was devoted to her "husband." Both wives
were firmly convinced that their husband was a man and ridiculed
the idea that "he" could be a woman. I am informed that De Raylan
wore a very elaborately constructed artificial penis. In her will
she made careful arrangements to prevent detection of sex after
death, but these were frustrated, as she died in a hospital.

In St. Louis, in 1909, the case was brought forward of a young
woman of 22, who had posed as a man for nine years. Her masculine
career began at the age of 13 after the Galveston flood which
swept away all her family. She was saved and left Texas dressed
as a boy. She worked in livery stables, in a plough factory, and
as a bill-poster. At one time she was the adopted son of the
family in which she lived and had no difficulty in deceiving her
sisters by adoption as to her sex. On coming to St. Louis in 1902
she made chairs and baskets at the American Rattan Works,
associating with fellow-workmen on a footing of masculine
equality. One day a workman noticed the extreme smallness and
dexterity of her hands. "Gee, Bill, you should have been a girl."
"How do you know I'm not?" she retorted. In such ways her ready
wit and good humor always, disarmed suspicion as to her sex. She
shunned no difficulties in her work or in her sports, we are
told, and never avoided the severest tests. "She drank, she