Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-11-30
WOMEN WHO ARE WHIPS.
NEW YORK LADIES WHO CAN HANDLE
THE REINS.
How Some Women Conduct Themselves
in the Drivers Box-Why Ladies
are Awkward With Reins.

| pedestrians, IaSnlOnaDle iauleS nave taken
the lines in their own hands. Go to the
east drive of Central Park any day, and
there watch the splendid procession as ii
rolls by-an almost unbroken line Of
equipages for two hours. And then count
those who hold ribbons, and you will
straightway conclude that the English fad
of ladies for drivers is upon us.
Somebody-a man, OF course-has said
that there are three things woman can
not do gracefully or well-throw stone,
"shoo" hen and drive steed. Why
As Artemus Ward would say, driving is
not woman's 'forte."
/ But there are women in Gotham who
have learned to guide skillfully their team
of ponies, and with them it is "go."
| Hundreds of New York ladies can handle
the reins with judgment and skill They
have strong arms quick eyes and plenty
of nerve. 1t is a real pleasure to see fair
charioteer dash by in her jaunty little
cart, having the flying ponies under full
| control.
a woman driver who turns aside for no
one, who just manages to avoid collisions,
| who scrapes corner curbstones so heavily
that one thinks she is going to upset the
| vehicle. Such fair charioteer is terror
to the lame,.th halt and the blind. She
| is the bette noir of the omnibus driver and
the cabman.
No wonder that women who drive with
/ IL Il
smile to spread over cabby's good-natured
face. Observe now Esmeralda conducts
| herself on state occasions. She knows that
she is being watched by bold, staring men,
and so she is haughtily confident. Usually
Esmeralda sits bolt upright, her shoulders
bent forward at an angle of As degrees, her
| feet braced against the dashboard, and her
hands thrust out as if to save herself from
falling overheard. She shakes the reins as
though they were tablecloths. She opens
her lips, showing her white teeth, and
makes curious little "cluck-clucks" in order
to hurry up the tagging steed. Half afraid
of the result, she gives the animal cut
with the whip, and then tugs on the reins
with all her might and main. Should the
fiery nag shy sharply one side or make a
wild dash, Esmeralda utters a succession
of tiny shrieks, and is ready to jump out
Dear girl, when she returns home it is
with the unruffled demeanor of medieval
saint.
So few women are really good "whips."
because so many are victims of bad judg-
ment. When Esmeralda picks up the
reins she sometimes drops two of her FIVE
senses. To manage housekeeping, high
spirited animal is always an exhilarating
task, and the woman is apt to get little
excited.
1t is no easy matter to guide a spirited
animal in and out the passing procession.
i Even the hackman comes to grief in trying
to avoid careless drivers. The rules of the
road are stoutly insisted on in the streets
of New York, and woe to the unlr ky in
diidual who would be so English as to
turn to the left He would be like to have
a wheel taken of or get into worse trouble.
| have heard cabmen say again and
again that ladies too often insist on having
the right of way. Usually men are gal
liant enough to turn aside rather than
argue point of driving etiquette. Yet
there is no good reason why ladies should
not respect the rules of the road. 1t is
not a question of courtesy, but of long
! established usage, which must not be
changed to suit the times.
Now, there is something fascinating in
being a good whip. The exercise OF tug
ging on the lines is exhilarating, and then
the conscious feeling of being able to make
good showing is always pleasurable. Be-
: sides. no woman is without pride in hav-
skill TO make herself an artist. For driv-
| L.
question of Judgment than knack. If the
fair driver be a person Of tone, she has an
equipage worthy of Lady We're de We're,
Like most amusements in Gotham, it is
expensive A stylish turnout means many
thousands of dollars. A phaeton or cart
costs $500. A good horse costs five or six
times that amount. The harness and trap
pings several hundreds more, and then
there is the expense of keeping team oi
horses. So that Carlyle's sarcastic de6ni-
tion of an English gentleman-a man who
keeps a gig-may yet become the definition
of Gothamite Few things in New York
impress the rustic sightseer more than the
wonderful display Oh elegantly appointed
equipages to be seen on our avenues. The
daily procession on Fifth avenue and in
Central Park is striking testimony to the
great wealth and luxury in our midst
The scenes in Hyde Park and the Bois de
Boulogne are paralleled on the east drive
Every afternoon in the spring and fall
New York ladies religiously take their air
ing. But the driving fad has at last seized
them, and they have made up their mind
/, to hold the reins in THEN own dainty
hands That settles it. Meantime the
eyes of New York are eagerly fixed upon
these ladies. Half Of the city turns ont to
) look at them. Go any afternoon and see
! for yourself the throng of sightseers strung
all along the fashionable drives. Ordinary
mortals who ride behind street-car horses
want to see how female aristocrat looks
as ! whip. The women like it because
| they are admired, because they enjoy a
new pleasure.
Already the horse show is talked about
in aristocratic circles. The women who
{ drive to the Meadowbrook hunt or to the
Dutchess county hunt display an extraordi.
nary amount Of "horsey" knowledge
There was club meeting up in Westches-
ter county the other week. and you should
have seen the quantities of pretty women
J coming up with the reins in hand. Such
an untoward event two years ago would
have occasioned those men in knicker-
bockers and big checks to drop the his,
This season the manner of each fair
charioteer is professionally scanned and
, comments exchanged.
: Ii was not until Mrs. W. K Vanderbilt
and one of the Astors were seen driving
that women took up the English fashion
Then 39S other people followed suit. After
Mrs. Bradley Martin returned from her
winter sojourn in London she pronounced
) the fashion as proper, you know" In
+ deed, while at her estate in Scotland last
fall, Mrs. Martin made quite a hit BY
driving pair of snow-white Egyptian
mules.
{ Another New York lady who is an ex-
/ pert whip is Mrs. Henry Clews Her ia.
vorite occupation while at Newport this
summer was driving at break-neek speed a
{ pair of ponies. Everybody on Ocean Drive
: admired her fearlessness and her manner
II Mrs Theodore Havemeyer and daughter
are considered good whips. They have a
; handsome country place at Mahwah, n
, j., where the stables are filled with high
bred horsefesh. Miss Havemeyer is seen
flying over the Jersey hills in her dog-cart,
7 which, as one countryman put il. "rocks