The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-09-28
ONE NOBLE WOMAN
 LADY FLORENCE DIXIE

It would be difficult to find more | self centered aud at the same time more
 fascinating character than. the English woman who wrote to President Roosevelt | on behalf of the children of tender age employed in mines and factories in the | 0t- ,-1t"s. Here is a woman, Lady 1 tlp;e1ce h-..->. who Is like her sexs ideal | man and yet Is much more of herself. | Brave as a lion, she has the womans | nature of intense tenderness, of perfect | delicacy and refinement. the mothers de- | voted love ard care for her children and | the forceful intellect that takes in all humanity as it were her own family. | It is the nature of the ideal woman.
 Born with the passionate Individuality | that must achieve no matter much what, l the little Florence wrote book of poems
 called Songs of a Child" before she was | out of childhood Next there stirred | within her the blood of her father. the | famous sporting Marquis who established 1 the Queensbury rules for the prize ring | tical protests against the conventional | ties of life. Florence became a huntress 1 and actually one of the best rife shots
 in all England. On the hunting fieid men | never, gave her any advantage because | she was a woman. they do most of the | fine ladies who play at hunting. Florence
 was as good a rider and shooter as the | best of the men themselves.
 Early Florence found the long hair to which her sex is A bondage a nuisance and a detriment She sheared it off and has gone short haired ever since. She found that the side saddle which women use is hard on the horse and dangerous
 to the rider She discarded 1t and boldly appeared in divided skirts and rode the cross saddle. She was one of the chief originators of the movement for cross saddle riding among women which fashion some of the leading society ladies of America have since adopted. more partic-
 ularly for the hunting field Tn working
 out her destiny of achieving Lady Flor
 ence found herself fettered every stsp
 of the way alike hy the clothes and the
 c"nventionalities wherewith women are
 hed6ed about They held her back from
 what she longed to do.
 Yet she did not join the whining
 chorus of women. as SO many of her
 sex do. She became an outspoken advo-
 cate of the rights of women and threw
 all her powerful, electric soul into the
 movement. In ,H-es, of course. she
 wears, so far as she is obliged to do the
 cothes Mrs. Grundy prescribes for her
 sex. but away from where all the worl1
 sees her she wears what she peases. In her passionate protest against the subtec- ton of women she has even recommend cd those of the sex who aspred to ac- Complishing something to disguise them- selves as men and go out and conquer, because it will be SO much easier then. In a published article favoring this plan, she mentioned that she knew a success tul woman snip captain whose sex mo- body suspected, also two exceedingly skilful women pilots who dressed as men and passed such without detection. IL Is q fact that today more women live disguised as men than the world suspects.
 When the merest girl-only 1S-Lady Florence married Sir Alexander Beau mont Churchill Dixie. Unfortunately. considering her views as to the enamel | patton of her sex, her own children, of whom there are two, are boys. so she has had no opportunity to bring them up as girls should be trained. Her boys are, | hnN fn hAE litAA-
 Married and a mother very young, | again, Lady Florence did not sit down | and whine because she was hampered | by domesticty and could not achieve. | She went on and achieved nevertheless. | ia which respect once more she is les. son to the sex. In 1S7S-79 Lady Florence l went on an exploring expedition to Pat agonia with her brother. Lord James | spondent of The London Morning Post | during the first Boer contest in South | Africa in 1880. Here she came to know | that line old savage, Cetewayo. King l broken and defeated, his country trib- utary of the British, Cetewayo was | brought to England. Lady Florence Dixie | interceded with the government. and nev- | released and sent back a free man to | his own land Eloquent as well as per | -istent is Lady Florence.
 One of her noblest traits is that-rare | among women-of having sympathy with | everyt ling that lives. So soon as she | found time after returning from Africa | she studied the Irish question and be- | came an ardent advocate of home rule. | When convinced of the righteousness ot | any measure she acts. and acts swiftly. l regardless of consequences.
 h her early hunting days Lady FiCr- | enCe killed all kinds of game that was | lawful prey in Great Britain: Then she | turned to the rest of the world. still kill | ing things She shot elephants in India. | lions and gazelles in Africa, bears in the | Rocky Mountains and every variety of | game in Australia But during the later years of her hunting career something | hal bee working on her lnlnd. In Pa:1- gonia she went ostrich hunting. In those | days ostriches were caught by throwing | loaded lariat a them. which wound | around a bird g neck and brought 1t to | the ground. The .ariat had a stone or piece ot lead at each end. Lady Flor | ence sighted her ostrich, whirled her la riat around, hurled if and hit native | guide upon tho head and killed him. It | is true that she gave his widow imme | d'ately 500, which that bereaved woman | valued more highly than her lost hus- | nand, since it enabled her at once to get | another one whom she liked better.
 But Lady Florence could not forget. | The incident stayed with her. At length | the old fiery craze for killing things died | out in her breast She hung up her rifle | and fnwhng piece forever.
 What she thought in the days when | her heart was changing is shown in this | that she wrote:
 "Once I left a scene of warmth and ] light and went forth into the wntry | night. The snow was trampeled down. was generally tingod with blood, fox crcpt across the road, a pheasant in his mOuth--no doubt one of the 'unpicked up victims of the days sport. As I | stood looking around my dog went to the edge of the lake. He found soms- thing in the rushes and returned with that something in his mouth. took 1t from him. a poor half frozen hen pheas- ant with two broken wings. vet stil alive. Tt had heon there all through those cold hours wai'tnS Tor kindly death to com- and still its -ufHrngs. That act oF mercy I now did for lt
 m suortswoman that had heen made rer "nop' ana she made 1t thoroughly and fa- tsens as =hA does everything else. Therceforward she who had beAn
 .So fnramast woman huntsr of her thue '