Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1894 — A Coasting Experience Hi the Alps. [ARTICLE]

A Coasting Experience Hi the Alps.

“ I had a coasting experience during a visit to Switzerland that was as exciting as it was novel,” remarked H. P. Woodson, of Philadelphia. “One day we made up a party of four ladies and as many gentlemen to make a short trip up among the Alps. Arriving at the top of a great declivity of frozen snow, oUr guide stopped, and, addressing himself to the ladies, • asked how they would enjoy coasting down the hill? As we had brought no sleds with us or any other contrivance for coasting, they looked at him in astonishment and asked him to explain. This he did, and we followed his instructions to the letter. Each of the gentlemen folded his overcoat in four and the lady whom he was to pilot down the hill took a seat on her shawl, the ends of which she wound about her feet, directly behind him, the gentleman holding her firmly by the ankles. Then at a given signal we started off, dragging our companions, laughing and uttering little shrieks, after us. We went down the hill like a shot, and at the bottom arose a trifle giddy, but otherwise none the worse for our experience.”—[St. Louis Globe-Demo-crat.