it in the interests of thoroughbred stock raising, as an adjunct of their extensive breeding establishments.

ex

The only body at present worthy of the name of a riding club is the Dumblane, a cross-country riding club, whose headquarters are at Dumblane, on the Tenallytown road, beyond what once was President Cleveland's estate. Mr. and Mrs. Howland, of Morrisania, New York, who spend a large portion of their time in Washington, have been the active leaders of the club. Mr. Howland is the proud owner of the half-bred horse Ontario, which won the high-jumping record at Chicago last fall. Colonel Neville, Hal and Rozier Dulaney and Messrs. Whitney, Knutt and Tidd-Pratt are among its active members. The existence here of a number of very daring cross-country riders, available for the nucleus of a wider organization, is the sure forerunner of such a riding club as few cities can possess. Washington has no suburban villages. Unlike the large cities of the North and East no fostered manufacturing towns abide beneath her eaves. Across the Potomac miles of land lie fallow, to the south as far as Fairfax Court House and west toward the Loudoun Hills. Rock Creek, within the District limits, is as wild and picturesque as the Yellowstone, and the red fox has his den within rifle shot of Brightwood, where Colonel Hoskins keeps a fine pack of hounds. The colonel rides like a thoroughbred himself and close at his heels come Gwin Tompkins- the

well-known turf writer "Greystone "-Dr. Darling, Ed. C. Blunt, Dick Peters, Arthur Herbert and others.

The contingent of the gentler sex is not to be ignored. Miss Nannie Bayard heads the list as the best rider in the exSecretary's family. Miss May McCulloch, daughter of Hon. Hugh McCulloch; Miss Myers, Miss Alice Maury, Miss Ethel Sprague, Miss Annie Ayer, a daughter of the Argentine Republic, who learned to ride on the pampas, and Mrs. Elizabeth A. Tompkins, the charming magazine writer, are at home in the side saddle, and can show the crack pupils of the academies the way across the stiffest stretches in the country side. Miss Ethel Sprague is a particularly daring and reckless rider, a black-eyed, slight brunette of twenty, who inherits her mother's grace and vivacity. She handles the foils, too,

like an expert, quite as well as Miss McCulloch, whose slender wrists contain cords of steel.

It will be difficult to place the limits of recreative athleticism in Washington. Into every branch of sport its ramifications extend. Five thousand are devotees of the wheel, three thousand of the net and racquet, not less than fifteen hundred are especially given to aquatics. Fully one thousand can hold a stirrup with more or less security. General field sports claim their hundreds, and the list slowly dwindles through the lines of lovers of rod and gun, archers and gallery shots to the end of the chapter.