A Walk from London to John O'Groat's: With Notes by the WayBurritt, Elihu
History
A Walk from London to John O'Groat's: With Notes by the Way
Burritt, Elihu
Agriculture -- Great Britain; England -- Description and travel
and fashionable assemblies of the shorter-eared elite of society.
But this prejudice against color and long ears is now going the way
of other barbarisms. The gentleman to whom I have referred, a
Member of Parliament, whose means are as large as his benevolence,
has taken the first and decisive step towards raising the donkey to
his true place in society. He has offered a liberal prize for the
best conditioned one exhibited at the next Agricultural Fair. Since
this offer was made, a very decided improvement has been noticed
among the donkeys of the London costermongers, as if the competition
for the first prize was to be a very large one.
It will be a kind of St. Crispin's Day to the whole of the long-
eared race--a day of emancipation from forty centuries of obloquy
and oppression. Doubtless they will be admitted hereafter to the
Royal Agricultural Society's exhibitions, to compete for honors with
animals that have hitherto spurned such association with contempt.
CHAPTER VI.
HOSPITALITIES OF "FRIENDS"--HARVEST ASPECTS--ENGLISH COUNTRY INNS;
THEIR APPEARANCE, NAMES, AND DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS--THE
LANDLADY, WAITER, CHAMBERMAID, AND BOOTS--EXTRA FEES AND EXTRA
COMFORTS.
I reached Saffron Walden at 4 p.m., notwithstanding my involuntary
walk of six extra miles in the morning. Here I remained over the
Sabbath, again enjoying the hospitality of a Friend. And perhaps I
may say it here and now with as much propriety as at any other time
and place, that few persons, outside the pale of that society, have
more frequently or fully enjoyed that hospitality than myself. This
pleasant experience has covered the space of more than sixteen
years. During this period, with the exception of short intervals, I
have been occupied with movements which the Friends in England have
always regarded with especial sympathy. This connection has brought
me into acquaintance with members of the society in almost every
town in Great Britain in which they reside; and in more than a
hundred of their homes I have been received as a guest with a
kindness which will make to my life's end one of its sunniest
memories.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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