Pedestrianism

64 MODERN PEDESTRIANISM. six miles in four hours, for a bet of fifty gui­ neas. He started from the first mile-stone at Hammersmith, at seven o'clock, and went the first sevenmiles withinthe hour, and ac­ complishedthe wholedistance in threehours and forty-three minutes. On the 26th of October1805, Mr.King, an optician,undertookto walk the same distance in the same time, fora bet of thirty guineas. He started from the first mile-stoneat Ham­ mersmith, andreachedthe 17th, beyondCoin- brook, in one hour and fifty minutes, and re­ turned to the place whence he had started seventeenminuteswithin his time, performing the whole distance in three hours and forty- threeminutes. A bet of fifty guineas having been made between Captain Hare and Mr. Cortey of WigmoreStreet, that the latter shouldnot go from Sevenoaksto Blackfriars Bridge, in two hours and forty minutes, on the 17th of April 1809;—the pedestrian started on the day appointed, andalthough the weather was extremely unfavourable, he did ninemiles in the