COEBESPONDENCE. 275 



<jross-saddle. The best test perhaps is the 

 foreign one. Mount a horse without a saddle, 

 but properly bitted, and then decide which is 

 the more natural and easier seat; in one 

 case you feel an appendage ; in the other 

 almost part of the horse. In the name of 

 womanhood I repudiate the suggestion of an 

 *' underhand way of punishment," being ^^ a 

 real feminine species of torture.'' Perhaps it 

 is, under the skirts of a habit, possible to 

 ** dig, dig, dig," for no one sees, truly; but 

 surely no lady could, or would, spur her horse 

 for the sake of tormenting him ; in my attire 

 at any rate it would not be unseen. The 

 extraordinary teaching that a " horse can do 

 no wrong" is an axiom with which I cannot 

 agree. I have been mounted on horses that 

 *^ could do no right," or if they could do it 

 would not. And it has taken me all my time 

 and taxed all my energies to prevent them 

 from doing the things which they ought not 

 to do ; for I do object to a horse attempting 

 to erect himseK in a perpendicular attitude, 

 either from a fore or aft basis, when I am on 

 Ms back, and I rejoice to know that I have 



18 * 



