A good rider should never mount from a horse block or a fence. The English mode of riding is fashionable. The smart pace is a short canter. In trotting, a man may rise to the trot. Squaring the elbows is a trifle vulgar and obsolete. In meeting acquaintances, a man should bow. A man accompanying a lady should always keep pace with her, and never either go ahead or let his horse fall behind. A man riding alone should never pass or catch up with a woman unattended.
When one rides in New York it is only in the morning. Afternoon riding in the Park is not the vogue it was. The New Yorker dislikes to dress up in any special costume, so that for years the fashionable afternoon riding costume was a black cutaway or morning coat, ordinary trousers strapped under the ordinary walking boot, top hat, and gloves, but the present riding costume for the morning in New York and the country consists of whipcord or corduroy riding breeches and jacket, brown leather waistcoat, brown Derby hat, boots or leggings, and dark gloves. You can wear this in the afternoon, but the ordinary costume is considered smarter and more convenient. Men in New York only ride in the Park, and many of them do not belong to riding academies or have lockers. A complete change of costume is not convenient, and you never see a New York clubman on the streets in riding togs. The evening classes always end with a supper and a dance. The woman's habit is easily changed, but to appear at night in riding costume or with boots in a drawing room is certainly absurd. To wear evening dress on horseback, even a Tuxedo coat, is also outlandish, and thus the compromise has been effected, and the old black diagonal cutaway brought into use.
Riding to hounds requires special knowledge as to the rules and the etiquette of the different hunts. These vary. The meet is generally at some farm or country house, and you are expected to appear in the regulation hunt colors. The orthodox costume is morning coat, white or fancy waistcoat, riding breeches, top boots, crop, top hat, and hunting scarf. The master of the hounds should wear a red or scarlet frock coat and hunting cap. After the hunt there is a breakfast, and several times during the year a ball. At the latter festivity, members of the club should wear their scarlet evening coats.
Coaching is yet another of the intricate arts. I will give a few points to the novice. The place of honor is the box seat and should be given to a lady, when ladies are of the party.
If a bachelor is a good whip, a coaching party is an excellent way for him to entertain. The start should be from some fashionable locality in town, and eight or ten is a large party. It is needless for me to call the attention of a whip to the importance of his drag and horses and appointments being perfect. During the progress of the coach the guard who sits in the rear blows his horn at regular intervals. A bugle or cornet is not good form, although I have heard it in small towns.
It may seem elementary, but for the requirements of those who have never coached I might as well state that the guests sit on the top and not inside the coach. A neat and serviceable team may be made with two browns as leaders and a brown and a bay as wheelers. To the novice the names of these will indicate their position.
A coaching route should be about ten to fifteen miles. A halt is made at a country club, of which the host is a member, or a hotel, where luncheon is served. The menu consists of the usual comestibles with plenty of champagne. Two hours altogether are allowed for rest, and then the start homeward is made. The whip should wear driving costume, with gray or black high hat. The men guests can be dressed in morning costume, tweeds, and Derby hats, unless the occasion is one of formality, such as a coaching parade, when one should don afternoon dress. The general etiquette of driving applies to coaching.
Wheeling is the popular and fashionable amusement at present writing, and it bids fair to continue so until quite late in the twentieth century. As yet there are no special rules of etiquette for this new sport, except that which would govern its dress. Otherwise there are the rules of the road—keeping and turning to the right—and the extending by gentlemen of those civilities which they should never forget to the fair sex, and consideration for their fellow-men. A man should always wait for a lady to mount, holding the bicycle. He should ride at her left, keeping pace with her, and sufficiently near to be of assistance in case of an accident. He should dismount first and help her to do so if necessary. The present fashionable costume for cycling consists of tweed knickers and short lounge jacket of same material, brown leather or linen waistcoat, colored shirt, with white turn-down collar and club tie, golf stockings, and low-quartered tan wheeling shoes. A cap of tweed to match the suit completes the rig. At cycling clubs black small clothes with dinner jacket may be worn, but as yet it is not the prevailing fashion.
In summer very natty wheeling costumes are made of linen or crash.
One word more as to wheeling. Owing to its popularity, many have sought to make it vulgar and common. An idea that a man has the privilege of addressing any woman on a bicycle is most erroneous. You would not offer such an impertinence to an equestrienne, and you must remember that a "wheel" is only a metal horse. To catch up with or pass unchaperoned or unescorted women wheelers is as much a breach of etiquette as to be guilty of the same vulgarity toward an unaccompanied Amazon.