But the ladies did not confine themselves to "ploughing the main." We know what an attraction a red coat has for them, and therefore no surprise need be manifested, if some of them tried the Army. In January, 1813, was a rather romantic case: a girl, in man's clothes, was enlisted in the 53rd Regiment. Her sex was afterwards discovered when she said her lover was in the 43rd Regiment on foreign service, and she wanted to be near him. In 1814, Old Phoebe Hassel was alive, and at Brighton, aged 99. She had served in the army for seven years. I do not know when she died, but there is a portrait and biography of her in Hone's "Year Book," ed. 1838, pp. 209, 210, 211, 212, in which she is spoken of as being 106 in 1821. The Regent, after seeing her in 1814, allowed her half a guinea a week, and at her death ordered a stone to be put up to her memory. Another woman who had served five years in the German army, applied for relief to the German Committee at Baker's Coffee-house--she had been several times wounded, but was so badly hit at Leipsig, that she had to be taken to hospital, where her sex was discovered. Women were then even as now, they aped the manners of the stronger sex. Now as we know, they invade the Smoking and Billiard Rooms, which used to be considered Man's strongholds; they won't let him alone even when shooting--for, so solicitous are they after his welfare, that they will bring him lunch: they run him hard in School Board, and County Council, and his last refuge is his Club, where, in some instances, he is not safe. We have seen how (vol. i. p. 86) they played Cricket publicly--a practice lately revived by "Actresses" and others. We know them well on the river, but I do not know of a revival of professional boat racing by them, so I give the following: "FEMALE ROWING MATCH.--A rowing match took place on Monday (September 29, 1817), on the river, between Chelsea and Battersea, which excited great interest. Six watermen's wives started in six scullers, to row a given distance for a wherry. The ladies were dressed in appropriate trimmings, and the boats were discriminated by different colours waving gracefully in the wind, at the stern. In the first heat two of the Candidates were distanced. The remaining four then started, and the prize was won, at two heats, by a strapping woman, the mother of four children. At the moment of her arrival at the goal, her victory was proclaimed by the discharge of a pistol by the Judge on shore, and she was carried in triumph into a public-house on the beach. No jolly young waterman could handle his oar with more becoming dexterity than this dashing female. Her numerous friends crowded after her, and drank her health in copious libations."