THE SIDE SADDLE, 



55 



designed and manufactured by Messrs. Champion and 

 Wilton. The disadvantages of the old style are so painfully 

 obvious that it is marvellous they should not have been 

 remedied years ago. On, or rather in^ one of these, the 

 lady sat in a dip or kind of basin, and unless her limbs were 

 of unusual length— thereby pushing her right knee towards 

 the off-side — she necessarily faced half-left, z.^., not her 

 horse's ears, but his near shoulder ; or, in order to attain 

 any squareness of front, she was called upon to twist her 

 body from the hips, 

 and to maintain a 

 most fatiguing, 

 forced position dur- 

 ing her whole ride 

 (even through . a 

 long day's hunting), 



or else sit altogether on the near 

 side of her saddle. This twist was 

 the cause of the pains in the spine 

 so frequently complained of. More 

 than this, the height upon which her 

 pommels were raised caused her to 

 sit, as it were, uphill, or at best (in 

 the attempt on the part of the saddler to rectify this, by 

 stuffing up the seat of her saddle) to find herself perched 

 far above her horse's back. The natural expedient of carry- 

 ing the upper or middle pommel nearer. the centre of the 

 horse's withers, so as to bring the knee about in a line with 

 his mane, was impracticable with the old.style of saddle tree, 

 which gave the pommels a lofty, arched base above the apex 

 of his shoulders. The result was, in all cases, (i) great in- 

 convenience and often curvature of the spine to the rider, 

 (2) constant liability to sore back on the part of the horse, 



