The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-05-17
PASTIMES OF LADIES.
The Outdoor Sports of English
and American Women.
GYMNASIUM AND WALKING.
The Importance of Dancing-Leadero of
the German-The CotiIlion Dinner
Flowers at Entertainments.
Copyrighted, 1891, by NJ. E. W. Sherwood.

No sun upon an Easter day
| Is half so fine sight
| Sir John Sucking.
The London Times says that the present
season has seen driving jump to great
| height of favor amongst fashionable wo-
| men,"
| 1t is curious expression but enlightens
US as to the liberty which even so great an
| authority takes with our common Ian
| guage. There is no doubt Of the fact that
the pony phaeton and the pair of ponies
| are becoming great necessity to an ener-
| getic woman. The ''little pony and the
Ralli cart" as ladies' pastime is famil-
lar figure at Newport in the season, at a
thousand country places. and at the sea
| side, in our own Central park and all
through the West and South.
1t has been much more the custom for
| ladies in the West and South to drive
themselves than for those at the North,
consequently they drive better. Only
those who know how to drive well ought
ever to drive, for they not only endanger
their own lives, but dozen lives besides.
Whoever has seen a runaway carriage
run into another carriage, and has beheld
the breaking up, can realize for the first
time the tremendous force of an object in
action. The little "Ralli cart" can become
battering ram of prodigious force.
No form of recreation is so useful and
so becoming as horeback exercise. No
Englishwoman looks so well as when
turned out" for out-of-door exercise.
And our American women who buy their
habits and hats in London, are getting to
have the same 'chie" Indeed, so immense
ly superior is the London habit considered,
that the French circus women who ride in
the Bots, making so great sensation, go
over to London to have their habits made,
and thus return the compliment which
English ladies pay to Paris, in having all
their dinner gowns and tea gowns made
there. Perhaps disliking this sort of copy,
the Englishwomen are becoming careless
of their appearance on horseback, and are
coming out in a straw hat "covert coat"
and cotton skirt.
The soft felt hat has long been a favorite
on the continent at watering places for the
English; and it is much easier for the
head. Still, in case of fall it does not
save the head like hard masculine hat.
We have not yet, as a nation, taken to
cycling for women, but many English
women so all over the globepn tricycle..
A husband and wife are Often seen on a
bicycle near London; and women who
lead sedentary lives, in offices and schools,
make much of their Saturday afternoons
thus.
Boating needs to be cultivated in Amer
lea. It is superb exercise for developing
good figure, and to manage punt" has
become a common accomplishment for the
riverside girls. Ladies have regattas on
the Thames.
Golf has vet to be introduced among us,
to rival lawn tennis, archery and ball.
Fencing, which many actresses must
learn, is very admirable process for de-
veloping the figure.
The young princesses of Wales are adopts
in this. 1t requires an outfit of dainty
tunic to the knees, a fencing jacket of soft
leather with tight sleeves, gauntlet gloves,
a mask, pair of foils, and costs about $l5.
American women, as a rule, are not
fond of walking. One must put in some
thing like an attraction or duty to rouse
our delicate girls to walk. They will not
do it for their health alone.
Gymnastic teaching IS, however, giving
our girls more strength, and it would be
we'll if in every family of daughters there
were some calisthenic training, to develop
the muscles, and to give more graceful
walk
To teach girl to swim is almost duty,
and these splendid physical exercises will
have great influence over that nervous
distress which our climate produces with
its overfullness of oxygen.
But if girls do not like to walk, they all
like to dance, and it is not intended as a
pun when we mention that ga great jump"
has been made back to the old-fashioned
dancing in which freedom of movement
is allowed Those who saw Mary Ander-
sons matchless grace in the winters
Tale" all tried to go and dance like her,
and to see Ellen Terry's spring in the
pretty Olivia teaches one how entirely
beautiful is this strong command of ones
muscles.
From the German cotillion back to the
Virginia reel is indeed bound
Our grandfathers knew how to dance.
We are fast getting back to them. The
earliest dancing masters were Frenchmen,
and our ancestors were taught to ''pirou-
cite" as did Vestris when he was so oblig-
ing as TO say, after royal command:
The house of Vestris has always danced
for that of Bourbon"
The galop has, during the long languor
of the dance, alone held its own in the
matter of jollity. The glide waltz, the
redowa, the stately mlnuet, give only the
slow and graceful motions.
The galop has always been a great favor
lite with the Swedes, Danes and Russians,
while the redowa reminds one OF the
graceful Viennese, who dance it so well.
The mazourka danced TO wild Polish mu-
sic is a poetical and active affair
The Introduction of Hungarian bands
Il Hungarian music is another reason
IS become "hop. skip and
'0Sipo DIGNITY or grace