Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1910-08-15
WOMAN, MASKED
As MAN, 0ECEVES
new YORK 5 YEARS
By Her Success Family Physi-
clan Wins Wager-Woman
Gets $4,000.

NEW YORK, Aug. 15.-Many women
have masqueraded as men, and for
widely varying reasons, and man. have
tried and failed in the illusion, but the
strangest story of a deception of this
kinda deception which continued over
five years, and in the thick of New
York's commercial life, where eyes and
wits are sharp and the battle of mascu-
line intellect is keen-is told by a
sm~ooth-voiced, slender young woman
without a suggestion of m~annishness,
who is staying at the Hotel Brevoort.
She is Mrs. Elena B.. Smith, and with
out a blush she tells how, In order to
help a physician friend in Boston win a
large wager, she Junk her femininity in
the personality of ALBERT c. Martinez"
creating out of her imagination a suave
and hustling young business man from
the Argentine Republic; how she de-
ceived hundreds of business men; how
she learned of '1ife" as the fashionable
young man of today seeks to know it
along Broadway; how she and her best
girl chum, Miss Edna Turgensen, lived
as Mr.. and Mrs. Martinez" and all
this with never a hint of a suspicion of
her real sex on the part of the people
with whom her ways were cast.
The doctor who was the cause of her
entering into the strange life of decep-
ton made the bet IN a Boston club in
June, 1906, that almost any woma of
nerve could live unsupported as a man,
and when he found so many takers that
the amount of the wager went into the
thousands he sought Mrs, Smith and
made the deal. The agreement was
that she was to receive s. 800 a year
for herself and Miss T%urgensen as long
as she successfully carried on the
masquerade.
Went Into Barber Shop.
She went into bars and barber shops
n other places frequented only by
men; she Joined clubs; she took an
active interest in all sorts of sports:
she had firtations, and she tells with
a good deal of naive pride of the ease
with which she made nques In
the offices where she was employed
she worked in her shirtsleeves, she
went out to lunch with her fellow
clerks, she gossiped and joked with
them, snapped stories and adventures,
of %gallantry, and all without a single
suspicion of her identity.
When MIR. and Mrs. Martinez
moved into their handsome apart
ments at No. 1856 Amsterdam avenue
they enlarged the sphere of their
social operations, and they entertained
lavishly. Among their friends was S.
Jorge Montijo, a Spaniard, whom
Martinez" had met in a business way
and whom they often visited. He was
as profoundly deceived as any OF the
others.
Only once was there danger of dis
covery. Martinez and several young
men friends were involved in a fight
in a Sixth avenue cafe one night, and
the young Argentine was laid out cold
when she was hit by a plate. Fortu-
nately for her, she came to in time
to prevent an ambulance surgeon from
taking her to the New York Hospital.
Now the masquerade is ended, 1t has
become necessary to send "Al Marti-
nez" back into the shadow-land from
whence he came on account of COM
pliations which 1t was feared might
arise with Miss Turgensen's family,
the members of which believed the
pair were married. The Boston doctor
has won his wager, and during the
period of the deception has paid Mrs,
Smith $500 a year. and the perpe-
traitor of the weird joke is enjoying a
laugh on the many lords of creation
as only a woman can