SEXAGENARIAN'S TRAMP.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 304, 28 December 1907, Page 6

SEXAGENARIAN'S TRAMP.

WALK OF 1235 MILES. w ., old and lively as a boy, Edward Weston, America's champion pedestrian, started from Portland, Maine, on a 1235 mile tramp to Chicago. Weston walked from Portland to Cldcago in 1867, in twenty-five days and twentythree hours. •' I am going to break my record of forty years ago. I'll tramp from Portland to Chicago in twenty-four days and twenty-three hours or break a leg in the attempt. I feel jn*t as sprightly and as well to-day as I was when I left Portland for Chicago in 1867, and can got over the road as fast .iit=l with as little fatigue as usual." Weston was accompanied by a staff of witnesses. He has walked about 70,000 miles since he began bis professional career as pedestrian in 1867. He hopes before long to pay another visit to England, of which he retains most happy memories. "Englishmen," said the champion lately, " are a nation of walkers. No doubt their splendid physique and undoubted powers of endurance. which make the average Britisher thinnest specimen physically in the world. are due to an open-air life and habits of pedestrianism. Tn England people do not take the omnibiH, tram, or train t j travel 100 yards, but they walk, walk, women and girls. A3 well as men and boys." . , Weston spoke of the time when he was in England, many years ago. and would be grieved to hear that the "bus. tram, and train habit has grown somewhat in recent times. He believes that America will always be a nation of dyspeptics while ite citizens cherish such an aversion to pedestrianism out of doors, or walking up a night of stairs indoors. Weston believes in teetotalism and physical culture, as taught in the schools nowadays, but walking he considers the best exe'reise of all, and a mile run before breakfast—not a mile walk, but a mile run—is the best thing possible for every man, more especially after passing bis fortieth year. (On the 20th of last month a cable message stated that Weston did the journey in 505 hours, his previous record being 623 hours. The best day's walk was 05 miles.)