A race to win a lady or lose a horse

Sunday, 04 October 2009 05:00

October 4, 1859. A young lady offers a bet: she will belong to the man who can overtake her in a horse race, but if he fails, the horse will belong to her. From a personal advertisement reportedly published in the Water-Cure Journal, as republished in the Ottawa Citizen.

I am just 20 but will not marry before I am two years older. I am a graduate of the Marietta Seminary. I can do, and love to do, all manner of housework, from making pies and bread to washing shirts. I can do all kinds of sewing, from embroidery to linsey pantaloons. I can skate, ride, dance, sing, play on the piano or spinning wheel, or anything that may be reasonably expected of my sex. If required, I can act the part of a dunce in society of the "upper ten," or the part of a woman among women.

As for riding, here allow me to make a barter; any man may bring two horses, give me my choice, and ten feet, and then if he overtakes me in one mile I am his; if not, the horse is mine. Beware!

By fops I am styled handsome; by the young men on whom I please to smile, I am styled the height of perfection; by those I frown up, "the devil's imp;" by the wise and sober I am called wild and foolish; by my female acquaintances, "Molly," and by my uncle, I am called "Tom."