WOMEN AS WALKERS

FAST RATE UNNATURAL Hiking among women has become increasingly popular, states the Melbourne Age. But there are brave authorities who contend that a style of walking fast by female walkers is more acquired than natural. Native women in the Pacific have never learned deportment. Carrying some sort of load, sometimes balanced on her head, the dark-skinned woman is a model in stateliness of carriage. She swings well from the hips and carries herself in perfect poise. But she never walks fast. Lady Heath has declared that quick walking is unnatural and difficult. During the World War women began to ent£r fields of sport previously reserved for the male sex. They have become skilled in football, cricket, even boxing and wrestling, field and track athletics, not to mention tug-of-war. After the war France founded, in 1921. the Federation Sportive Feminine Internationale, the supreme governing body of women's sports. Athletic authorities are generally in favour of walking for women, but not race walking. It is a moot question whether race walking, with its stiff action, is an elegant event for women, apart from the strain imposed, which is considerable.