" HELL-FOR-LEATHER."
[To TIER EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:1
SIR,—In reply to your New Zealand correspondent, lean only say that the phrase "Hell-for-leather," as used in my poem,
Marshal Vorwarts," is intended to be suggestive of hard and headlong riding. In this country the expression is, I believe, well known and freely employed by hunting men. For its use in literature I would refer your correspondent to an admirable example contained in Kipling's ballad, "Shillin' a Day," where the following lines occur :—
" Oh, it drives me half crazy, to think of the days I Went slap for the Ghazi, my sword at my side, When we rode Hell-for-leather,
Both squadrons together, That didn't care whether we lived or we died."
Of the origin and history of the phrase I have no precise knowledge. But there is an old and well-established use of the word " leather " as a synonym for the skin of the body, as in the hunting phrase "to lose leather," and as in Swift's couplet
"Returning sound in limb and wind, Except some leather lost behind."
It is conceivable, therefore, that, in the literal sense, he who
rides " Hell-for-leather " is he who rides in a fashion very deleterious to the human cuticle. But this is only conjecture
on my part.—I am, Sir, &c., FRANK TAYLOR. 46 Carlton Hill, St. John's Wood, N.W.
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