Pedestrianism; or, An Account of the Performances of Celebrated Pedestrians During the Last and Present Century.: With a full narrative of Captain Barclay's public and private matches; and an essay on training.Thom, Walter
History
Pedestrianism; or, An Account of the Performances of Celebrated Pedestrians During the Last and Present Century.: With a full narrative of Captain Barclay's public and private matches; and an essay on training.
Thom, Walter
Walking
In April 1808, Mr. Podgers walked four hundred miles in eight successive
days, for a wager of two hundred guineas. He started at Basingstoke, and
from Hampshire went into the counties of Wilts, Gloucester, Somerset,
Sussex, and Kent, finishing at Maidstone. He walked twelve hours each
day, and slept eight. His weight was fourteen stones, and he did not
appear the least fatigued at any period of the journey.
Mr. Dowler, a publican at Towcester, Northamptonshire, walked five
hundred miles in seven successive days, for a bet of one hundred guineas.
He started on the 3d of November 1808, and finished on the 9th, at three
o’clock in the afternoon.
Captain Howe is a celebrated pedestrian, and walked three hundred and
forty-six miles in six days, for a wager of two hundred guineas. He
started on the 8th of March 1808, at four in the morning, to go from
London to Exeter, and made out sixty-four miles by nine at night, having
stopped at Basingstoke for an hour. On the following day he walked
seventy miles; and on the third day, arrived at Exeter to dinner, where
he stopt three hours, but returned to Honiton to sleep. On the fourth
day, he reached within nine miles of Salisbury; and on the fifth night,
slept at a public house near Basingstoke. He had now forty-nine miles
to perform on the sixth day, which accomplished by six o’clock in the
evening. Captain Howe, on the 28th of the same month, gained a match of
two hundred guineas against Captain Hewetson, having walked eighty miles
in less than twenty-four hours.--He also beat Mr. Smith in a twenty mile
race on the Uxbridge road, about the end of October 1809. Mr. Smith was
the favourite before starting; but Captain Howe performed the distance in
two hours and twenty minutes, beating his adversary by half a mile.
On the 9th of June 1812, Captain Howe undertook to go sixty miles in
twelve hours for a wager of two hundred guineas. He started at four
o’clock in the morning, and did half the distance in twelve minutes less
than six hours. He continued at the rate of five miles in the hour, and
won the match within ten minutes of the time allowed.
Mr. Canning, a gentleman in Hampshire, walked three hundred miles in
less than five days. He started at the turnpike road four miles from
Basingstoke, at four in the morning, and went sixty miles in fourteen
hours. He finished his task two miles from Yeovil in Somersetshire, by
eleven at night, on the fifth day. He was apparently so little fatigued,
that probably he could have continued for several days; but in the course
of the journey, he lost twenty-six pounds in weight.
Mr. Rimmington, a farmer at Holt near Dorchester, in October 1811, walked
five hundred and sixty miles in seven days, at the rate of eighty miles
a day, for a wager of two hundred guineas. He was much emaciated by this
extraordinary exertion, and became very lame towards the close.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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