WOMEN AS WALKERS

Evening Post, Issue 25, 30 January 1935, Page 17

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 stylo of walking fast by female walkers is more acquired than natural. Native women in the Pacific have never learnt 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 Ijei'self 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 enter fields of sport previously reserved for the male sex. They, have become skilled in football, crieket, even boxing and wrestling, field and track athletics, not to mention tug-of-waf. After the war France founded, in 1921, the Federation Sportive Feminine luternationale, the supremo 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, Svith its stiff action, is an elegant! event for women, apart from the strain; imposed, which is considerable. The; Victorian railways revealed strength in psychology when they arranged tery hikes,"'a form of hiking in which, the excursionists enter a train bound for somewhere, and at a given signal disembark, still bound for somewhere.: There must be a lot of fun on those occasions: The response by'women is said to have been astounding. Give Flora or Phyllis a mystery to solve and she is happy. But Mr. B. H. Croll told: us four years ago that women and girls had taken kindly to the open road. At first he had located them in such places: as Lome and Healosville, with one day as the limit of their outing tvom. hotel' or boarding-house. But gradually their horizon" had widened.: Three feminine; walks within his knowledge were from Warrnambool to Queenscliff, Lillydale to Warburton, Wood's;Point, Darling-' ford, Buxton, Mafysville, Healesville,. and Melbourne; and, more daring- stilly Bright-Harrietville •■ - Feathertop-Om,eo-; Ensay-Buchan-Cunnihghame. ; On the1 Wood's Point excursion a caravan conveyed the feminine walkers' food and' bedding, but they disdained a lift lor themselves. . ■: • ■■ ~ ,;■' .■.::, ■<;,;.■ ■'', ■■■'•;'.