A Victorian lady traveler was judged as useful as a man at driving cattle.

Evidence

So we’ve been driving cattle all day, riding about twenty miles, and fording the Big Thompson about as many times. Evans flatters me by saying that I am “as much use as another man”; more than one of our party, I hope, who always avoided the “ugly” cows. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 141

Categorization

• CANDY: Tidy, surprising one-liner: a proper Englishwoman praised as ‘as much use as another man’ after fording the Big Thompson twenty times.