PROGRESS IN SPORT

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 40, 16 August 1919, Page 12

PROGRESS IN SPORT

BY AMERICAN WOMEN

. It is a popular belief that most women are almost as much 'afraid of a gun as thoy are of a mouse. While this might have been true in a way in times past, it does not to any extent prevail longer, says the New York Evening Post. No better proof is needed than the fact that women have recently taken to trapshooting, heretofore regarded as distinctively masculine sport. So rapid has been their progress at the traps that there are several women in the United States to-day who have attained a degree of proficiency that they quite often head the men in their class, or at least cause these male shooters to step lively to keep ahead. One might suppose that the men trapshooters lacked sportsmanship in not '"slowing down" for the women contestants. . But this is impossible in trapshooting. One either hits or misses a clay bird. And nothing is to be gained by purposely missing. In may be said without fear of contradiction that the woman who shoots meets her lord and master on equal terms. And this is one of the reasons why this sport is popular among women. After all,, coursing through the veins of most women is the same sporting blood that is always mentioned as the- birthright of man.

■ Women like trapshooting, not only because they shoot on an equality with men, and always will, but because the men accept them as honest-to-goodness contestants. A woman usually shoots hi a squad with the men. The targets- are throw.n the same distance for her, she gets the same angles, and she must abide, by all the rules which are laid down for the men. Indeed, the man is regarded as the better gentleman, the better sportsman, because he does accept the woman as a " comrade-at-arms," and expects her to shoot ,with him and accept the same conditions which he must face.

The success this spring of women at the traps is only the latest illustration of the American girl's remarkable progress in athletics in the past half century, which renders quite problematical the distance she will go in the future.

Mrs. Ada Topperwein is a woman shooter who can" hold her own any day in the week with tho best men in the game. Other women trapshots who have displayed exceptional skill during the past few years are Mrs. C. E. Groat, Mrs. A. G. Willies, and Mrs. Ada Schilling on the Pacific Coast; Mrs. Curtis King, and Mrs. 0. L. Garl, of the South; Mrs. A. H. Winkler, Mrs. C. D. Moon, Mrs. D. J. Dalton, Mrs. Harold Ahnert, and Miss Lucille Meusel, in the Middle West; and Mrs. Harry Harrison, Mrs. John Atlee, Mrs. Frank Mellon, Mrs. M. Hellyer, and Miss Harriet Hammond in the East —these and many more have attained a great degree of proficiency.

In addition to trapshooting, our girls have, very lately, shown exceptional ability in tennis and swimming. In this latter sport, not one girl but half a dozen girls are this summer clearly demonstrating that women, when given half a chance, are capable of becoming aquatic marvels. Miss Ethelda Bleibtry, a New York schoolgirl, barely sixteen years old, who was only a green novice at the swimming game a year ago, to-day stands a title-holder and a world's recordist.

To-day women play with success almost every popular game in America, and it is by no means fair either to regard them as the weaker sex in sport;' with a few possible exceptions—such, for instance, as wrestling, boxing, football, and baseball. Of modern women who have learned the intricacies of boxing and wrestling, there is probably no one more proficient than Vera Roehm. Miss Roehm claims that physical benefits accrue to her sex from boxing, and she strongly recommends it as a means of reducing or developing. She advises women to do a little shadow boxing daily, which means boxing with an imaginary opponent. This, she claims, will bring a grace of carriage and freedom of movement excelling that of dancing. While billiard playing is a very different pastime from boxing and by no means' so strenuous, at the same time this game, so far as championship playing goes, has until very recently been in the hands of men almost solely. Lately, however, Miss Catherine Haywood, of Philadelphia, has shown a proficiency at balk-line billiards that is superior to many men, while Florence Flower, who is the woman champion at pocket billiards, plays;that game with exceptional skill.

Although women have not as yet gone in extensively for the newest of all sports, air racing, at the same time Ruth Law and Katherino Stinson are as daring and expert as any of the male fliers. In June last Miss Stinsoii made a.'AtrwsMf _l lwft^Uiaaea wa.1.1 flight b«> ,tw«.ia New. Joi- gad Qhicego/,.