Where Women Ride Astride.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXII, Issue I, 2 January 1904, Page 59

Where Women Ride Astride.

There is much discussion nowadays as to whether a woman is at all justided in riding otherwise than on the dangerous side-saddle which fashion has decreed to be the conventional seat for the fair sex while indulging in horseback riding. And yet the fashion of riding astride as men do is but a return to an old custom. at one time universal, and even now considered quite natural in some countries. Indeed, up to the sixteenth century, side-saddles were unknown in the Old (’onntry, while the old custom survived Still longer on the Continent. It was not until nearly the close of the eighteenth century that riding like a man was done away with entirely in Germany, for there is a picture, painted in 17C>0. of Amelia of Saxotiy, Goethe’s friend, riding to the hunt in distinctly masculine fashion.

At the present day it is quite the usual thing for ladies in Cairo. Persia Brazil. Chili, ami the countries of South ern Europe to ride in this manner.