and on Wednesday it occurred. The girls were splendid horsewomen, but
they had to change horses each mile, and the horses were strangers to
the girls, and excited, and the crowd of 30,000 was excited, and the
girls were kicked, trampled on and jammed into saddles by main strength,
and away the horses would go, the crowd howling, the horses flying and
the poor girls sighing and holding on with their teeth and toe nails,
expecting every moment to be thrown off and galloped over by the horses
and the crowd.

The pandemonium was kept up until the seventh round, when the saddle
of Miss Jewett, the Minnesota girl, slipped, and she was thrown to the
ground on the back stretch, and the crowd clamored for the master of
ceremonies to send her another horse, while the California girl whooped
it up around the track. They had to send a stretcher for the girl, and
she was brought to the judge's stand as near a cold corpse as could be,
her pale face showing through the dirt, and her limber form telling its
own story.

Then people that had been enjoying the "fun" looked at each other as
much as to say, "We are the biggest fools outside of congress, to enjoy
coldblooded murder, and call it fun." The girl will live, though some
of her bones are warped. This whole subject of lady horseback riding is
wrong. The same foolish side saddles are used that were used before
the flood, with no improvement since Eve used to ride to town after the
doctor when Adam had the rheumatiz.

Women can ride as well as men, if they are given a show, but to place
them on a horse with both legs on one side of the animal, so they have
to allow for the same weight of other portions of the body on the other
side to balance them, is awkward and dangerous, and it is a wonder that
more do not fall off and squash themselves, A well built woman is as
able to ride as a man. Her legs are strong enough to keep her on a
horse--we say legs understandingly, because that is the right name for
them--if she can have one on each side, but to shut one leg up like
a jack-knife and hang it up on a pommel, and get a check for it, and
forget that she has got a leg, and to let the other one hang down
listlessly beside the horse, the heel of the foot pounding him in the
sixth rib, is all nonsense, and those two legs, that ought to be the
main support of the rider, are of no more use than two base ball clubs
would be hung to the saddle. For all the good legs do on a side saddle
they