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CHAPTER XX. 

 CROSS-SADDLE RIDING FOR LADIES. 



The question periodically arises as to whether women 

 should adopt men's saddles in preference to their own. 

 I have studied the art of riding astride in an ordinary 

 man's saddle, and would give a negative answer to 

 that query. The fact that by the adoption of the cross 

 saddle, about seven pounds in weight would be saved, 

 and the work for the horse would be somewhat easier, 

 ought not to outweigh the enormous disadvantages on 

 the other side. Whenever a lady is dragged by skirt or 

 stirrup and killed — an accident which, happily, occurs 

 but rarely nowadays, for we wisely adopt the best 

 safety appliances to prevent it — up crops that ever- 

 green question of cross-saddle riding, as if men never 

 come to grief! Statistics would, I think, show that, 

 considering the large number of women who hunt, the 

 proportion of fatal accidents to them in the hunting 

 field is extremely small as compared with the male 

 record. Then, again, the question of sore backs from 

 side-saddles may be urged ; but with a well-fitting 

 saddle which is properly girthed up, this trouble 



