HIKE AND HITCH

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 94, 15 January 1935, Page 8

HIKE AND HITCH

Mr. Punch tells the story of a country yokel who, addressing to a recumbent figure on the wayside, clad in shorts and open-necked shirt, with a pack on the ground near by, the question: Ikm, zttr. received the reply in a Cockney accent: “Yus, all over brom which piece of humorous-satire the deduction was plain that to the art of “hiking” many may be called but few are chosen. It is possibly true that the hiking craze as a popular pastime has spent itself, leaving in its wake the select few who walk for walking s sake. Much more attractive to the modern devotees of fresh air and sunshine to whom walking does not appeal is the later cult of sunbathing on the beaches. Here Hygeia may be worshipped with a minimum of exertion and a maximum of slothful and luxuriant Of hiking, however, to judge from a news article published today, has been born a new enterprise, described as “hitch-hiking, for the successful exploitation of which there are at least two essentials, a certain histrionic talent on the part of the hiker, and an indulgent and hospitable motorist. Thus favoured, the hiker, especially if of the weaker sex, may with ordinary luck travel from end. to end of the country at a minimum of expense and of physical exertion. Aetna.ly, there is nothing new in it. The hitch-hiker is merely a mode: nised version of the train-jumper of America, of whom O. Henry has so many diverting tales, and the New Zealand swagger of pioneer day s who was helped along his way by passing wagons. The .niotoi>age has evolved a new type, and the hiking craze a new technique. Ihe end will come when the motorist realises that those who move his chivalrous instincts are not damsels in distress, but calculating and practised w’ayfarers.