“What went ye out for to see?” The public undoubtedly expected to see a number of pursy, plethoric City men, attired in frock-coats and silk-hats, walking to Brighton. What they did see was a crowd of apparently professional pedestrians, lightly clad in the flannels and “shorts” of athletics, trailing down the road, with here and there an “unattached” walker, such as Mr. Pringle, who, fulfilling the conditions of a wager, walked down in immaculate silk hat, black coat, and spats—“immaculate,” that is to say, at the start: as a chronicler adds, “things were rather different later.” They were: for thirteen hours’ (more or less) rain and mud can work vast changes. The day was, in fact, as unpleasant as well could be imagined, and it is said much for the sporting enthusiasm of the countryside that the whole length of the road to Brighton was so crowded with spectators that it resembled a thronged City thoroughfare.
It said still more for the pluck and endurance of those who undertook the walk that of the ninety-nine starters no fewer than seventy-eight finished within the thirteen hours’ limit qualifying them for the commemorative medal. G. D. Nicholas, the favourite, heavily backed by sportsmen, led from the beginning, making the pace at the rate of six miles an hour. He reached Streatham, six miles, in 59 mins.
And then a craze for walking to Brighton set in. On June 6th the butchers of Smithfield Market walked, and doubtless, among the many other class-races, the bakers, and the candlestick-makers as well, and the proprietors of baked-potato cans and the roadmen, and indeed the Lord alone knows who not. Of the sixty butchers, who had a much more favourable day than the stockbrokers, the winner, H. F. Otway, covered the distance in 9 hrs. 21 mins. 1⅘ secs., thus beating Broad by some 9 minutes.
Whether the dairymen of London ever executed their proposed daring feat of walking to Brighton, each trundling an empty churn, does not appear; but it seems likely that many a fantastic person walked down carrying an empty head. A German, one Anton Hauslian, even set out on the journey pushing a perambulator containing his wife and six-year-old daughter; and on June 16th an American, a Miss Florence, an eighteen-year-old music-hall equilibrist, started to “walk” the distance on a globe. She used for the purpose two globes, each made of wood covered with sheepskin, and having a diameter of 26 in.; one weighing 20 lb., for uphill work; the other weighing 75 lb., for levels and descents. Starting at an early hour on June 16th, and “walking” ten hours a day, she reached the Aquarium at the unearthly hour of 2.40 on the morning of the 21st.
THE STOCK EXCHANGE WALK: E. F. BROAD AT HORLEY.
Those who could not rehearse the epic flights of these fifty-two miles walked shorter distances; and, while the craze lasted, not only did the “midinettes” of Paris take the walking mania severely, but the waitresses of various London teashops performed ten-mile wonders.
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