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Show A HUGE JOKE. j Mrs. Maitland Alexander, whose husband is pastor of the First Presbyterian church in Pittsburg, Pitts-burg, the most fashionable in that city, has been practically ostracised by her social circle because she rode man-fashion at a horse shoe recently. She and her husband are wealthy, but. members of the congregation have waited upon the reverend gentleman gen-tleman and intimated that their combined fortune? do not justify his wife in violating congregational proprieties. The Alexanders are inclined to look upon the whole affair as a huge joke. And. why not What right have those precentors, vergers, deacons and elders to intrude upon the Alexanders, and their opinions of the propriety of her conduct at a horse show? Out upon the narrow-minded bigots of the First Presbyterian church of Pittsburg Pitts-burg to express their disapproval of the lady's equestrian accomplishments. What,, after all. was it but artistic posing in action; a distinct renaissance renais-sance of the lost art of female mastership in the hippodrome. The public exhibition of Mrs. Alexander Alex-ander riding a la closepin was but a finished demonstration dem-onstration of the classic beauty of the female form when rising to the hurdles she gracefully topped the bars and displayed "the charming sinuosity of a lady's body clothed in a perfectly fitted tailor-made suit. Her riding, wo are told, was an inspiration. In the soft glow of the electric lights her carriage was superb, and when fearlessly rising to the hurdles hur-dles she lifted her dun-colored mare to. the leap, she and her mount dissolved into a single personality person-ality and furnished an example of poetic posing unlike anything ever before seen in the Smoky City. It was an education in hippodromic art that "brought down the house." In the brightness and warmth of the great pavilion, pa-vilion, inebriated with the intoxication of flowers and perfumes 'which accelerated the pulses of her young and tender heart, the fearless equestrienne a pi ea led to the sense of appreciation of her admirers ad-mirers and scored a distinct success. The club men and high rollers of the primitive and moral citv of Pittsburg were won over to a belief in the supernatural su-pernatural by her appearance, which they declared was a miracle of grace and heavenly beauty and, furthermore, they pronounced her flight over the bars a finished performance and a fascinating display dis-play of flegance and agility. Re hauged to the deacons; )10' wonder the Alexanders regarded the unmannerly protest of the stiff and starched elders of the First Presbyterian church as a good joke. These were the men who, twenty years before, vociferously vo-ciferously cheered the gyrations and piroutte,? of Pauline Melville when mounted on her untamed Arabian steed, Mazeppa. she gave exhibitions of suppleness and daring that held the tented specta-tirs specta-tirs spellbound. Didn't they also go wild over the oas-seuls. tg irorantulas and fandangos of Corinne, the Spanish dnnseuse, and the buck-and-wing dancing danc-ing of Cissy Puval? And now these seasoned old hemlocks are ready to hiss this fascinating lady when giving, without salary, remuneration or pay, to the uncouth, smoke-grimed Pittsburgers, object lessons in serpentine undulations aud the poetry of motion. But she can afford to laugh at and despis ? the Puranitism and prudery of these wrinkled elders, el-ders, for has she not the support and approval of the elite of the male population of her city, who declare she achieved a unique success, imparted greater dignity to the art of animal control, and that by riding astride she declared for equal rights and tin i??dpcffifeflP gf ffcj wfigt faifS tliv biot of t!(n First Fresbytertan church to sfly to fhat? I"' ! I |