unlikely to enjoy the ripeness of mental and bodily vigor which Professor Richards has stored for his satisfaction through the years when he tramped the highways with a knapsack and a friend.

THE DIVERSIONS OF MRS.
LADENBURG

AMERICAN democracy is apt to smile

at riding to hounds as an imported pastime of doubtful value as a test of sportsmanship. The initiated know better, but it remained for an American woman to show that for courage, daring and skill in one of the most hazardous fields of pastime, man's vaunted superiority is not a monopoly. Even in England, no finer horsewoman than Mrs. Adolf Ladenburg ever steered a hunter at a stone wall, or was more often "in at the death" with the hardest riders of the hunt-men not excepted. That a woman of great wealth, rare social gifts, endowed most lavishly with all that is popularly supposed to make life ardently worth living, should find her dearest diversion in risking the loss of her life in the hunting field, is one of those illogical things that are in Anglo-Saxon blood.

Women who have schooled their nerves to follow the hounds because it was the proper thing to do if one wished to belong to the hunting set, have viewed the career of Mrs. Ladenburg with shivering envy. For in the finest, manliest sense of the word, she has been a "sportswoman" ever since she learned how to sit in a saddle, for sheer love of it.

Driving a four-in-hand, or taking the helm of a racing thirty-footer, have been mastered by her with the same skill and certainty exhibited in the hunting-fields of Long Island and the English shires. It is paradoxical to be reminded that Mrs. Ladenburg is a matron with a daughter, now old enough to ride along the highways with her graceful and slender mother. Yet it is only two or three years ago that Mrs. Ladenburg was doing the hardest riding of her hunting career, and she is still one of the foremost figures in the Meadowbrook Hunt, with no intention of retiring from the active list.

In her notable years as a huntswoman, the season of 1900 was, perhaps, the most sensational and harazdous for Mrs. Laden

berg. At that time, Mrs. James L. Kernochan was equally prominent in the hunting field for dauntless riding after the pack, and while the rivalry was wholly cordial, nevertheless both women were especially anxious that there should be no lagging behind at the finish of the run, and if one must be behind, then each wished in her heart that it might be the other. The writer remembers one of the most remarkable feats of that dashing season as achieved by Mrs. Ladenberg. She was riding a borrowed hunter-a big, rawboned, crack jumper "Winchester."

The run had led across eleven miles of rough country with uncommonly stiff fencing and lots of it. Horses were dripping and blown, when the last jump came into view. Nearby were clustered scores of traps and autos for the spectacle of the finish. At the point for which Mrs. Ladenberg chose to aim her hunter, the heavy rail fence was five feet eight inches high. She put him at it, with all the dash she could key him up to, and the game hunter sailed over this hair-raising obstacle without flicking the bark of the top-rail.

It was in this same season that she took a five foot stone wall without a trace of hesitation, after the others had sought an opening to go round it. "She's light of weight and hand, but she's like a rock in the saddle," said one of the Meadowbrook huntsmen, as he once watched her sail over the jumps in the lead of the straggling pack of riders. It was in a Thanksgiving Day hunt of the Meadowbrook Hunt that Mrs. Kernochan and Mrs. Ladenberg made a famous finish. Mrs. Ladenberg rode "Juggler," a powerful bay with a great stride, and Mrs. Kernochan was on "Retribution," at that time probably the best hunter of his class in this country.

This time Mrs. Kernochan was first in at the death, with her dashing rival close up, while the redoubtable Foxhall Keene could do no better than third. The run was over nearly seventy rail fences.

It is this sort of riding done year after year, in all weathers, and at all risks, that Mrs. Ladenberg has enjoyed as a pastime.. Once, when out with the Monmouth Country Hunt at Newport, her hunter fell as he rose at a stone wall. She was thrown into the field beyond, lit like a bird, leaped aside to escape the plunging horse, led him to the

wall and mounted again before the field had passed her. At the end of another killing run of fifteen miles across this Newport country, she was the only rider in sight at the finish. Two years ago, during the first run of the season at Meadowbrook, Mrs. Ladenberg was thrown and so badly bruised that she was taken home in a carriage. But this was a trifling mishap in a long list of almost miraculous escapes from worse injury.

Her hunting seasons in England and on the Continent won her new laurels and much tribute of admiration. Yet, when all is said and done, there are many thousand women in this land, who, so often reading of the charm and grace and wealth of this brilliant society matron, ask themselves the question: "Why does she risk breaking her neck whenever she gets a chance?"

Nor is there any other adequate answer than:

"Because she likes it."

THE KIND OF MEN THE PRESIDENT LIKES

YSTEMATIC in his great pressure of

SYSTE

business, methodical in his pastimes, a human machine of tremendous capacity of daily output, geared to habits of the utmost efficiency, this is George B. Cortelyou as seen by the world with which he comes in official contact. His is a sound mind in a body as sound as a nut, and he so orders his pastimes that they help to keep him fit for all he has to do. More than one guest of the President has had cause to regret that he had neglected hard riding or enthusiastic walking in his earlier years, and many a smile of pleased appreciation of an afternoon's outing in the company of this most distinguished citizen has masked sore bones and aching muscles.

Here is where Mr. Cortelyou has proved himself capable of keeping to any pace cut out for him. In his office no amount of

work has been able to daunt him, while on the road he is trained to come up smiling no matter how rough or long the going may be. In his unostentatious way, he is one of the best sportsmen in Washington, and his condition is that of an athlete keyed to the hour. He learned to ride as a youngster who had to have a "leg up" to mount, but once on board he stuck like a burr. Riding was an ardent pastime with him many years before he had to follow a hard-riding President.

He picked up boxing, and became uncommonly handy with the gloves, until prizes for amateur sparring matches were among his athletic laurels. The deepchested, broad-shouldered, compactly-muscled build of him was ready for the making of a good all-round athlete, had Mr. Cortelyou cared to specialize in this glittering field. Through a hard-working youth, however, he found time to become a more than respectable swimmer and oarsman. It was a training that bred in him the love of outdoor exercise, and which sends him out on long, swinging walks whenever he can get free from official harness. "That man is as strong as a horse and works like a team of 'em, was the admiring tribute once paid by Speaker Cannon to the untiring industry of Mr. Cortelyou. He is a notably consistent figure in a vigorous "outdoor administration," and in his own quiet way preaches the gospel of the "strenuous life" by his daily works.

Another hardy figure in this White House family, though of a more adventurous and picturesque type, is Lieutenant G. Roland Fortescue, one of the military aides stationed at the Executive Mansion. Not long ago, a story went the newspaper rounds, that in a boxing bout the President knocked out Lieutenant Fortescue with an artistic swing on the jaw. For obvious reasons the episode lacked confirmation, yet without casting doubt on the might of the Presidential arm, the comment among several young men of Washington and elsewhere,

was:

"If Fortescue was knocked out, somebody must have used an axe to do it."

Eight years ago this young officer was a student in the University of Pennsylvania. It is fair to his scholastic zeal to say that he was as good a quarter-back as student. Those were the days when Pennsylvania.

was exhibiting a cyclonic and invincible style of football. Fortescue was a substitute quarter-back, but so promising a one, that promotion seemed certain. To the average youth, such a pursuit would have filled all normal seeking after hardy excitement and danger. But Fortescue chose to hold the view that while the peril to life and limb was fairly adequate, this kind of warfare lacked variety. Having looked around the belligerent horizon with much care, and finding that peace brooded overmuch among the militant nations, be discovered one outlet for his ardor in the rebellion blazing in Cuba.

Fortescue was not discouraged by the tragic fate which befell his brilliant comrade of the gridiron Osgood the half-back -who was killed as a major of artillery with Garcia, and he maneuvered until he obtained permission to join a filibustering expedition out of Florida. Several months of hair-raising escapades on the Spanish Main and ashore with the erratic revolutionists convinced Fortescue that football was about as dangerous, although not so variegated, and he left Gomez to fight it out bereft of the aid of one resourceful young American.

Fortescue was uneasy at home for little more than a year. Then the Maine was destroyed and his hopes rose. When the call came for recruits for the Rough Rider regiment, he was one of the first to hasten with an offer of his vivacious services and, mind you, he was already a veteran of one campaign, and had dodged Mauser bullets and yellow fever, so there was no doubt of his enlistment. He made a good soldier, and as a corporal before Santiago, won compliments from his colonel, Theodore Roosevelt, whose orderly he was at San Juan,. where he was wounded in the foot.

Further commissions were waiting for this stamp of born soldier, and he was given a first lieutenancy in the 26th Volunteer Infantry soon after the close of hostilities in Cuba. Sent to the Philippines, he saw long and arduous service, and further showed that while a good football player was lost to the college world, a first-rate soldier had been made for Uncle Sam. served two years in the islands and was made a second lieutenant of the Fourth Cavalry in the regular service. His more recent appointment to the White House

He