LADIES IN THE HUNTING-FIELD 299 



the country to find eight ladies to form a match 

 at polo, but a lot of healthy excitement can be got 

 from playing two, or even one aside, while there 

 is no exercise which tends to make the rider part 

 of his or her horse more than playing with stick 

 and ball. 



I should be guilty of a grave sin of omission if 

 I did not in this chapter make some allusion to the 

 difference in female hunting costume between the 

 beginning and the end of the century. The long 

 skirt is now only familiar to us through the drawings 

 of Mr. John Leech. The marvel to us is that our 

 forefathers allowed ladies to wear such a dangerous 

 garment, which gave the wearer no chance of ex- 

 tricating herself if she met with an accident. A 

 lady might just as well go for a country walk in 

 a drawing-room dress, with long train and feathers, 

 as attempt to ride to hounds in the skirts which 

 Mr. Leech has depicted. But though the long skirt 

 was discarded before 1850, it is hardly five years 

 since the apron usurped the place of a skirt in a 

 riding habit, in spite of the fact that for many years 

 experts had declared in favour of some such garment 

 as the present apron. Not only was the skirt liable 

 to catch in the pommel of the saddle, causing the 

 wearer to be dragged in the event of a fall, but 

 its continuous flapping was liable to irritate a horse. 

 Many were the remedies suggested and patented 

 before the apron was adopted. At first the scanti- 

 ness of the apron was objected to, and if Mrs. Grundy 



