J 68 HORSEMANSHIP, 



pretention to taste appears in breeches and boots, or in 

 breeches and leggings, though these nether garments are 

 quite allowable in the country. In the park, well cut 

 riding trousers are essential, and in wearing them the stirrups 

 should always be longer than when riding in breeches. Few, 

 very few, tailors can build a pair of riding trousers well, so 

 that they shall fit well up into the fork, and lie faultlessly 

 over the boot without the slightest drag from the strap. My 

 idea is that a horseman can generally be told by the cut 

 of his breeches. A workman who is much in the saddle 

 always insists on comfort combined with fit. He goes to 

 men who understand their business, and who only supply 

 the best of materials. 



I can tell breeches turned out by such '' top sawyers " as 

 E. Tautz and Son, of 485, Oxford Street ; Whiting, of South 

 Molton Street, and others of their calibre, in a moment from 

 the clumsy pyjamas of the ordinary tailor. These firms are 

 careful that they should be nice and full in the thigh, fit 

 to the knee as if moulded on that joint, and that — a very 

 important point — the knee buttons be well in front and per- 

 fectly true. Great care is taken in giving exact and sufficient 

 length, in keeping the inside seam of the leg straight and 

 the outside seam full The materials most in vogue for 

 home wear are leather, i.e., buck or doeskin, Venetian cloth, 

 Bedford cord, Prussian twill, buckskin cloth, velvet cord, 

 either white or drab, moleskin, drill and cantoon. For India 

 and the colonies there are special materials, such as thin 

 doeskin, kharki, and various twills. For every-day wear 

 during the winter I prefer a mouse-coloured or grey very soft 

 buckskin, substituting a doeskin of the same sad hue in the 

 summer. These latter I especially commend to my friends 

 in India. 



Without suitable drawers, however, leathers of all sorts in 



